Pelican

Two species of pelicans live in the Danube Delta – Great white pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) – on the photo – and Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus).
MAX YAKOVLEV/REWILDING EUROPE

Once upon a time, a long time ago
There lived a bird.
And like an arrow in the sky,
She could run.

Wide wings, proud wave,
Threw her into the waves.
The hunt was good
And the beak was full of fish.

She carried to her nest
I got a fish.
Three chicks were waiting for her there,
Three small lumps.

Mother tried to feed them
And keep warm at night.
To turn faster
The beautiful pelicans.

But the trouble came to the edge,
Where did the pelicans live?
The water is gone, the dry land has come,
The world has become dry as stone.

For hundreds of miles, everything died,
Everything froze in silence.
Who could, went to a distant land,
Filling my heart with pain.

And here in the lifeless land
There was a mother with chicks.
No pain, no hunger, no heat,
Don't break your mother's soul.

She flew day and night
Looking for food for the chicks.
But nothing in the empty land
She didn't find it.

To the nest where her chicks are waiting
Tired returned.
The chicks are weak from hunger,
And life turned upside down.

From sorrow, eyes closed
And a beak that has strength.
Mother tore her breasts in despair,
Tore to shreds.

Blood gushed from the wounds in a stream
The chicks crouched in the stream.
Sip, then another sip,
And life played with them.

And the mother lies without moving,
There is not a drop in it anymore.
With the last drop, life is gone
And two wings went limp.

This legend has been around for many years
And let the century fly by,
In any region, in any country,
In any nest, in any hole,
For the life of children, any mother
Ready to give your life!

Boris Guryanov