On Permian shoals the damp chalk glimmers

On Permian shoals the damp chalk glimmers
With the purple mother-of-pearl of an ammonite.
It is the gleam of ancient dawns turned to stone,
Time has grown horny. Here lie hidden

The bones of the beast-like. Their decline
Preceded the flowering of the dinosaurs,
But it did not earn the laurels of their dreadful glory,
This cascade of strange and whimsical forms.

Among them are half-frogs, half-lions,
Half-deer, half-tortoises...
The mystery has grown numb in the frozen dust
Beneath the cotton wool of drowsy mosses, beneath the felt of the grass.

Beneath the moisture of bygone moons that rolled off their orbit,
Beneath the ash of fallen stars that pierced the darkness of night,
Above the graveyard of forests hidden in anthracite,
Above the spasms of fires that tormented the deep,

The thunder of aeons will fall still, the laughter of centuries fall silent,
The salt of the Triassic will settle over the Permian sea,
A race as yet unknown will arise,
More whimsical, more terrible and more lawless than them all.

A biped without feathers. Man.
By definition akin to the dinosaur.
The most beast-like of all the beast-like,
Yet the Image of God. Quicken your stride!

As the dinosaur was transformed into a bird,
Might you not be able to turn into an angel,
And more than an angel! The vault of heaven blazes,
A string rings out, an arrow flies to the zenith,

The abysses are opened wide, all the books are open,
The tidings pierce time: Christ is risen!

Literal translation

Andrey Anatolyevich Zaytsev, 2006