Аннотация: The famous biblical story continued. Продолжение библейской притчи о блудном сыне.
By Alexander Viktorov
The 1917 Socialist Revolution in Russia is nearing its centennial in 2017. The antiglobalization movement, actually anticapitalist, is growing world over. Three fourths of the world do not seem to be willing to live on $1 a day by 2015, as the UN report predicts... And Russia is Russia...
2017. The Prodigal Son Flees Home Again
His comeback seems now to be made in vain,
And the prodigal son leaves home again.
In vain the fatted calf was for him slaughtered -
He got only a snippet of it and a cup of water.
And the bulk was devoured
Less than in an hour
By those who were not prodigal any
And who had stayed at home to save every penny,
Who skin prodigal sons and daughters
Having taken them alongside with calves to slaughter.
The prodigal son's father got stuffed to the gills and preaches:
"Look, only at home you can find real riches.
Together with you we can slaughter calves twofold
Then skin them, sell skins and get tenfold in gold.
What good is seeking other ways across life?
You had hardly half a cake a day - now you can have five!
All our folks will be glad:
Our business will thrive!
To our business you were dead,
And now you are back alive.
You've got a robe, a ring, and Le Monti shoes now.
All you must do, paying back, is to take a vow
That you stay and help me and your elder brother
Market our calves,
In that business we'll go halves:
You'll get more shoes, rings, and robes
Provided you live up to our hopes."
The elder brother came scowling and grinning:
"It seems to be paying - not working but sinning:
Behold, a fatted calf has been killed in your honor
And me - I am looked at as if I'm a donor..."
But the father cut his elder son short:
"Stop seeing a mote in your brother's eye!
He is back to become yours and mine ward
To stop him for ever from saying "good-bye"...
Well, I've had enough, 1 am tired and gonna couch...
But I don't want you to have a fight with your brother,
I am too old now to organize you another...
Since for peace this night neither of you can vouch
I'll put you, my prodigal boy, under lock and key
In our guest room so I have a guarantee
That I find you alright tomorrow,
You have given me, quitting once, enough sorrow..."
So the prodigal son got accommodated,
But all familial cares now come to him belated.
He can't sleep because of his heartfelt battle:
No, he's unprepared to skin and sell cattle,
He'd left his home for a freedom's mock...
And then he heard someone tamper with the lock,
He heard a key-turning rattle
And he readied himself for a home battle.
He turned to face the comer - one or another,
And the comer came to be his elder brother,
Who smirked a grin: "Brother, now it's my sin.
You won't anyway bring any grist to our mill,
You have got your own flagpole to shin
Who knows, maybe one day you'll win...
So you may go or do as you will."
"Thank you, brother, I thank you for that brotherly cup.
It was my error to have returned
To disturb you and our father and what you have earned...
Now I have to go - the time is up
To see again plains and trees, and waters, and birds,
And walk on, on and on
Along mountain paths and in all kind of dirts
To see in the very end The Kingdom of John ."*
"Okay, brother, you may go
To spare our family another woe..."
They parted without kiss,
And the prodigal son walked
Across the plain trying not to miss
The path to the East that people had talked
To be the path to the real bliss.
As he was just in the very start,
He heard a voice as if it was a dart:
"Stay, brother, don't be that speedy!
Share your way with me, be not so greedy.
I want also to see plains and trees, and waters, and birds,
To hear other nations talk, to learn foreign words."
The prodigal son delayed and waited
For his elder brother to join him.
They had never been indeed closely related
And he believed his elder brother's word just a whim.
But the elder brother put his hand on the younger one's shoulder
And they walked on and on, the younger and the older...
The prodigal son's new history yet has not got much renown.
Maybe you have seen the two brothers passing thru your village or town?
*The Kingdom of Presbyter John was a legendary kingdom in the medieval East believed to be a hypothetical "Golden Age" state founded by a British crusader.