"Letter", by D. Melnikov (my translation from Russian)

One of the poems that are popular in Russia right now:


Letter

By Dmitry Melnikov


Later, write me a letter, as if I was alive, 

Write of happy things, not of your grief. 

Write to me, that your windows look right 

On the boundless turquoise blue sea. 

That a boat speeds for shore, racing fresh salty breeze, 

Filled with fine silvery catch to the full;

While above in the skies hangs a sprawling space fleet —

Russia's snow-white cotton wool.  

I used to break our steel-like time with bare hands, 

Kissing its blackened lips without scruples; 

Write to me of your love, never mind the gray strands; 

Write to me that I freed Mariupol. 

Write: "My dear, you belong just to me";

Say: "Years fly, and, quite soon, we will meet". 

I'm not dead, I'm asleep, and the blue Azov sea

Gently touches the boots on my feet.

(2022)






--------------
*Cotton wool — besides the obvious allusion to clouds, here also alludes to a derogatory term, which had been widely used by spreaders of russophobic propaganda in the last couple of decades. "Cotton wool" (in Russian, "vAta") and "padded/quilted jacket" (in Russian, "vAtnik") refers to the type of simple work clothes that were worn in the USSR, mainly in the first part of the 20th century. 
Those who seek to vilify everything to do with the Soviet era and to fan hatred towards Russians in the former Soviet republics have long been using these terms to create stereotypes of supposedly backward/uncool Soviet legacy; of the supposedly oppressive and crude nature of Russian culture. The terms are also part of the attempt to belittle Soviet army's role in the defeat of fascism during WWII (Red Army soldiers often wore such padded jackets back then). 
These terms are employed by the post-2014 Kiev-based regime's supporters as a means of dehumanising the people of Donetsk and Luhansk (and any other people, who gravitate towards Russian culture), along with other nicknames, such as "Colorado beetles" (an allusion to the striped ribbon of a historic Russian military decoration)