The Giant

The giant

Пётр Дубинин

                In Russian      http://stihi.ru/2020/11/26/9677

                Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined,
                Form'd a whole which, irregular in parts,
                Yet left a grand impression on the mind,
                At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts:
                We gaze upon a giant for his stature,
                Nor judge at first if all be true to nature.
          
                Byron  DON JUAN  Canto 13-th lxvii
               

                Those drivers of people from their icy dwelling,
                Will tug them ahead to new ages and times,
                As long as at least even last man on his going,
                Will be by spiritual thirst sorely languished inside.               

                Даниил Андреев  ТИТУРЕЛЬ

Everyone knows about the colossus of Rhodes,
Though 't is long time as he lies on sea bed,
No less people know moais from isle of Easter,
Who has ever heard about SHAMAN? So get
Notion and behold, 't is a wonder of the world,
Which is in Russia, in her, so called Far East,
From where people run away now pretty fast.
I 'd like to tell you something just few words.

   

                THE GROTTO

Mooring a boat to a steep left bank of Amur river,
In Experimental Field and hit a path NW 20 km far,
You will see on a slope of hill so tremendous statue,           *
That in amazement you will stand your jaw ajar.

How long it standing here in the world?
How could it have arisen on a hill at all?
About this nobody have a slightest notion,
Hungering bears there are so get precaution.

Nearby there is a grotto, it confirms conviction,
That formidable shelter is a people's creation,
As well by them has been erected and this giant,
From Nature they had only stones gained.

To put a heavy slab on its walls as a cover,
The mighty hoisting crane could only do,
Or men carved it out hill God know how,
Managed by skilled one unknown hitherto.            **

The grotto might have been a tent for them,
To hide from rains, as a kitchen or shack,
To store a meal or tools and other items,
To rest with dry straw under their backs.

People with mind of ancient times,
Odd dark for us cryptic a civilization,
Expressed themselves in this big stones
But we cannot catch their implication.

Maybe it's just that they lived here,
Among them was a leader this one,
He actually was outstanding hero,
Sincerely been loved by everyone.

In order saving people from starvation,
On mammoths he assaulted in first rows,
By him was lot of predators assassination,
That saber-toothed tigers feared his wrath.

Or what ancient people wanted to us say,
NANI interpreted correctly in their legend?         ***
Or Byron's greatest poem has display,
Impelling ladies to cry, men getting stern.

Amiss surmise! Man surecan petrify,
If, like us, those people were cruel,
But, then they could not to survive,
Our flaws were alien to ancient people.

Certainly, in those distant times,
Tyrants, chiefs, Fuhrers as ours so brutal,
Not that there wasn't them themselves,
But even such concepts couldn't be at all.

Since food production was their main task,
And from  the whole community depended luck,
And if they have a leader, I should like to ask,
How he could rule from a grotto by a hunting tackle.

 
  *  70 meters height! And how old, nobody know!
Motherland - 52 meters, without a sword, with it-80.
Colossus of Rados, was, about-32 meters,
Idols (moai) on Easter island, no more than 12 meters.
The statue of Liberty is 46 meters high.

   **   Homo habilis - man skilled.

   
   ***  Once upon a time, there was a shaman in this area who had a beautiful
 daughter, Adzi. She loved the hunter, but her father didn't like him. When the
 young people realized that they would not receive their father's blessing for
 their Union, they decided to run away. The angry father turned into a bear and
 chased them. When father caught up lovers, between him and the hunter, a deadly
 struggle ensued. Unhappy the girl could not look at the fight between two dear
 and beloved people, she was afraid of losing each of them, so she turned to the
 good spirits with a request to stop time. And time stood still, and on the high
 ground they stood still forever Adzi, a stone Shaman and a Hunter with a dog.

   Nani - the self-name of the Nanai people, means a person (of this) land.
   

   ===============================
 

                THE LEGEND

Inhabitants of those land, nani,
Might to relate a sorrow legend to you,
Insensitive to her scarcely one could be:             
In vain two lovers tried themselves rescue.

Young hunter fell in love in beautiful Adzi,
Reciprocally is in love to him and she,
Her father stands athwart to their bliss,
Help! - spirits she in a desperation pleads.

And aid has come from spirits of the hill,
They has compelled there time stay still,
As well as others petrified ought to be,
But I had not seen them close to me.

And pity, many times I sailed along by there,               *
Once even moored there on the bank of river,
This Shaman stone was nearby somewhere,
I did not gone to see, now I'll hardly go ever.

That's now from the Experimental Field,
(Which may be already is not exist)
People walk by path through fields and hills,
Where is a miracle of world amazing most.

Yet, by the way, even now this path,
Is hardly visible in dense wilderness,
Rarely hit by scarce band of tourists,
Let alone there wasn't single scientist.

Formidable giant stands on a slope of hill,
Long time ago, that only God can reminize,
Nearby him are  three stones, lesser size,
Everyone play their role there staying still.

Aji, her chosen one, and father her Shaman,
Long time ago, by legend, they lived there,
Haidee, her father Lambro, beloved Don Juan,
Their dire lot of life, by Byron, also shared.

Their destinies broken, busted hearts,
Due ill atrocity of their vicious dads!
The lion being full, forgets his rage immediately,
Man only petrified forgets his wroth, yet scarcely.

"Thus lived - thus died she; never more on her
  Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
  Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth: her days and pleasures were
  Brief, but delighful - such as had not staid
Long with her destiny; but she slepts well
By the sea-shore , whereon she loved to dwell".

                /as Byron told/

  *  In 1974, I went by boat with my friend S. Panasekin (see photo to
 http://stihi.ru/2008/08/21/1088) from Komsomolsk to Mariinsk, where my
brother-in-law M. Opalev's parents lived. When, after 100 km, it was empty
a tank of gasoline (20 liters), we moored to the shore and climbed its steep,
where we found an abandoned village - Experimental Field - in a dence high
thicket of sagebrush. Previously, there was a "subsidiary farm" that supplied
Komsomolsk agriculture products. Out of this thicket came a group of half-savage
ragamuffins who were providing some food, already, just for themselves.
 I knew there was a Shaman-stone somewhere here, and I would like to see it, but
 it turned out that a round trip to him demands two days to walk, since there are
 not a trail, but are hungry bears. So, we, with Stasik, crossed Amur to the
right bank, in the Lower Tambovka. There, I bought a blue Bolon coat, which was
 then in fashion and in short supply, and we sailed on, stopping here and there.
 By the evening, having covered 400 km., we reached Mariinsk. There, there was a
 summer rush of keta (salmon) - even greater deficit.

     =================================
               

                TIME MACHINE

Everything, if not man, so Time'll destroy:
Volcanoes, floods, glaciers, earthquakes,
But nothing their vigil could here breaks,
Eternity they stood and so will keep stay.

In very ancient times of this statue creation,
Amur carried on nearby Shaman his waters,
But forces of inertia of the Earth's rotation,
Pushed riverbed to right for 20 kilometers.

In former days, the Shaman stone I could to see,
With binoculars from mid river,  but did not seen,
Now I am unable such observing would been done,
As to force Earth to spin backward around Sun.

But if still, this would be possibly,
I would like to turn Earth in times back,
In the Pliocene epoch, supposedly,
To take a look at ancient people work.

When those trees were three times taller,               
And our ancestors four meters were height,
For them the statue was two times smaller,
Than for the modern people sight.

What does this idol means for them?
Why, I'd asked them, he was their hero?
And how many problems do they have?
If not so many, I wouldn't seen our era.

Sculpture it's removing needless things,
While carving, a lot of time have pass,
How many epochs it's standing here since?
Till now scientists haven't told to us.

For living on Amur, this stone is Shaman,
Whom he for builders was, we do not know,
In Moscow there aren't I guess just few men,
Who heard about him or by attention bestow.

They know pretty good another scarecrows,
Being meticulously in some trifles sunk,
For instance gazing at the maski shows,
And see movies with shooting blank...
            

In the distance is seen  a ribbon of the Amur river, its width is about 3 km., to it is about 20 km.