yesterday      I met      a wandering Estonian
he is not a Flying Dutchman
in your letter      Yan!      I understand your grandfather’s days
unfurled the sails in a spacious garden      and I hear angels were singing      the song of
                                                                    the honeybees
I know nothing of       the old days of your grandfather’s
grandfather’s      groundwater      the boy who lost his father when he was a child
before he could remember      soon      will become
a wandering Estonian
no matter how hard he searched      and searched
there are only a hundred secrets      a thousands bits of evidence about his father
who had disappeared      been wiped out
“I      saw      your father      in the camp
when I worked with him      that man or
this man      father A      father B      father C
father D      the stories of those who happened to see your father
are all scattered tales”      so I think
now      if my father were to return to this world
I would never      live in a land like this again
I would      leave      here      be gone to a different continent
but      Yan!      a wandering modern Dutchman
an Estonian Dutchman
who is that professor      teaching
Polish on a ship in heaven with his sails spread?      he has
wings on his back      but      there is a trace of frozen blood
on his chapped hands      and on his chest      don’t cry
trees in what was your grandfather’s garden!
birds that were singing there      insects      an infant boy!
you can hear the song, can’t you      we      are the Flying Dutchmen
while we are alive      and when we are dead      Yan!      in your letter
your trees tremble
I can hear a poem      in Polish      by the man who was your father
don’t unfurl the sails      now is the time      that ship is
passing the garden      of your grandfather’s days
when angels were singing the song of the honeybees