***[Downtown Tallinn is beautiful] Poem by Jürgen Rooste

Downtown Tallinn is beautiful. Over there, by Estonia Theater and the
old bank (where independence was proclaimed) and the secondary school.
Just one shopping center stretches like a bomb crater across the road. Over there,
that school, is where we attended. My grandfather graduated in '47, in the USSR.
During German occupation, in '42, he bought himself a Kalevipoeg flag holder:
Estonia's tricolor is planted in it even today. I went to school in Soviet times and
studied myself free. My daughter hasn't seen that despotism. A child of
free time and school.The most frightful thing now is that shopping center across the way.

Translated from Estonian by Adam Cullen