Celebration (Kukeri) - Radoslav Serafimov

KUKERI

It’s the bells you’ll hear first

They want their presence to be known

They come, like gluttony and thirst

Creatures of wool and blood and bone

Pounding feet, they’re fast approaching

The opposite of winter, the messengers of spring

The bringers of a death encroaching

On evil, cold, corrupted things

Chants and hollers fill the twilight

They call their challenge boldly

We stoke the pyre to fend off night

Waiting on them, embers burning coldly

And now you see them, emerging from the darkness

Fur and fang, masked faces, shining in the fire

Hairy bodies bent under bells of blackness

Their rings coax the flames higher, higher

They ring the fire, their chants unceasing

They sing of spring, of new life breathing

But before that they must fix things

For no life can rise where death may still reside

They are demons yes, they are cruel

But they are ours, so we bring them fuel

And as they raise their voices higher, calling all the evils to them

And burst across the fire, burning them to ruin

I see their one true burden, the aim behind their madness

They are here to burn away the sadness

Every winter ends my friends

But not because we cower

It ends because some seek no higher power

Some leave their homes one winter’s morning

And as the sun is dawning

Don the skins of demons, becoming omens

Of destruction for all those other winter’s mornings

And as they chant and ring their bells

The message is now clear

Life’s not gone, life’s not going

You may have covered us, tried to send us to a frozen hell,

But we remain

We are still here!

BY RADOSLAV SERAFIMOV.