PRESERVE US

Preserve us, preserve us, Earth!
As you preserve burned grass
Or a lightning-scorched, bleeding tree
Falling quietly where people pass.

Preserve us, preserve us, Sea,
Whether we swim out or not.
Light as a gull-feather be
To the child asleep in its cot.

Preserve us, preserve us, Love,
Lead us again back home,
When we are going, searching for light,
Bare, to each other unknown.

Preserve us, preserve us, Time,
Teach us to forget all we've known
When the sun arises, when we return
Having crossed into the Unknown.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



PROBABLY, THIS IS LOVE

Like little children playing with fire...
Probably, this is love?
Let it be so. Ah, let it be so!
I'll laugh as soft as a dove,

As I would cry, forgiving you
My tenderness given away.
Ah, but the sweet and sinful light
Of the blue lilac spray

That blossomed upon my bosom last night
And was plucked off with such pain!...
How bitter it is, the wine of your blood!
Make haste – it is day again!

Only – the dreadful, crazy thirst
Of rivers too dry for ships...
The black-hued, dew-laden flower of night
Is fading upon my lips...

You've drunk your fill? Ah, let it be so –
I'll say as soft as a dove.

------------------------------------------

Like little children playing with fire...
Probably, this is love...

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



RETURNING YOUR FLOWERS

I'm returning your flowers. It's Autumn.
With dry gooseberry stalks Earth smells sweet.
And the sky's ever deeper, and water
Feels more painful for chill-blained feet.

I'm returning your flowers. You know -
It's a fact – every summer runs through.
Let's go look for a house where there's light,
Where there's nothing but bread and fruit.

And that's why I'm returning your flowers
From the field of illusion. Please put
Words aside, just remain here with me
While the Milky Way fades underfoot.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



* * *

I'm perched on top of the
Tree of Life
singing like a bird.
Multiple suns surround me,
not one moon...
Time has ceased somehow.
The luminous warm expanse
vibrates with a music of spheres...
To leave or to stay?
To return to earth?
To WHAT? –

Drowning out the celestial harmonies
is the soundless scream
in my daughter's eyes,
begging with pitiful gratitude:
Mama, wake up!

And you forget
that you can sing like a bird.
You lie in the recovery room
stripped barer than the barest December tree
and your teeth are once again chattering
to the hard rhythm of life.

Welcome back.

Translated by Gražina M. Slavėnas



* * *

Tomorrow I don't know what you will mean to me:  my wings, my load?
Never yet has a life inside me asserted itself and grown
with such fiery, wild, impetuous force.

You are my country now – all of it under my heart.
Yesterday was but a street under passing feet.
You are like a young god.  And I don't care where
you take me:  heaven or hell.

A moment's whim?  A sign of fate?  Who cares.
A self-destructing star at dawn above whirling sparks.
I sink into you and there turn to flame.
Stripped bare to my dearest darkest depths.

Translated by Gražina M. Slavėnas



* * *

Leaf by leaf,
Moment upon moment,
Spark after spark,
You sing out,
Live out,
Burn out,
And rise from the ashes
Phoenix-like
Tearing open your breast
to feed them
drop by drop
with your heartblood.
Consummate self-adulation.

Translated by Gražina M. Slavėnas



* * *

Woman with a German shepherd's eyes 
You no longer have anything to guard 
Your hymn has grown hoarse 
More ragged and wild
More like a howl
Before the full moon
Before an empty life
Under the wolves' and vagabonds' stars 
With an abundance of buried ones 
And you yourself are just loose ends 
Not tied to anything
Not even to the dump of hope 
A heart buried not too deep

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

I continue to hunger
For a determined and weathered diver 
With the pearly palms of a fisherman 
Who could raise me
From the very bottom of despair's ocean

Dive deeper
So that you'd find me, finally

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

My sisters the wagtails 
Ideal companions
And conversationalists
I understand you without words 
It is enough that from your wings 
The sun's microscopic
Dust
Remains on my fingers
Barely, just barely, gilding them 
The last touch
On earth

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

On heaven as it is on earth
Time illuminated a new star 
And immediately forgot 
Up there
And down here
That my only brother
A good for nothing drunk
Is dying on the city's cobble-stoned streets 
Having gained nothing
The best of the best
The richest of the richest 
In the world of the poor 
Never make it anywhere
He lies kicked and stepped over
By those who have committed to memory 
That it's not about stars, but money

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

Time played a trick
Grew suddenly exhausted and ended 
Neither sand nor water was left 
Only ringing being 
And you do not know what to do 
My disconcerted soul 
All the doors are open 
But you do not know through 
Which one to pass first 
And through which window 
To see the amazing dawn 
That will never, never become 
The lovers' twilight 
The sunset of terrestrial gods

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

There where a guardian angel
Hired for the occasion 
Awaits you so that he could 
After all the explosions and fires
The blows to the back and gunshots to the head
Open up for you alone the gates to elegantly rigged Nothingness

Because it is on heaven as it is on earth

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

Tonight
Again I regained
My lost paradise
An orchard in a mountain monastery 
The purest souls of the Middle Ages 
Only I shouldn't allow myself 
To awake too suddenly
Into the ending of the final judgment days 
To the barest irony
The grayest skies
Isolation and loneliness
In the middle of a crowd
Emotions dragging me down 
To earth

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

The crickets' evening song
Silent prickly pines
For the blinking of an eye acceptance 
The seagull's webbed claws on the sand 
You have written all the letters 
That you will never need to send 
As it is you will receive 
Bloody footsteps across the skies 
The white sun of Čiurlionis

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

Climbed into a tree
And stroked the moon's face.
That left its cheek with
A strange, unprecedented trace.

Now you won't be able
To live with your brothers.
The holiday starts,
But you have no new clothes.

There's singing, music making.
They're drinking not water but wine,
With the doors locked
And windows nailed so you can't see in.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

When we carry the light.
When they laugh out loud. Turn to look at us.
When we stop on the hilltop
And sing our anthems.

There will be sun.
The high peak of noon.
The time that is hardest
And the best there is.

When we carry the light.
They'll hide the children and shut windows.
And they'll stand by the door,
Axe in hand.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Singing in a dream.
On suddenly waking, there's quiet.
It stops. And the bridges
Are rainbows across a void.

Over there, the stallions
Keep flying, flying and neighing.
And are bold enough to prance.
Without glancing back.

Light in the eyes.
And a face raised to the sun.
As only a newborn is blameless,
One just dead is blameless, cleansed.

I raise my drink to you.
I drink to the dregs for heaven.
Dressed in white,
They walk the road at midnight.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Between those who are loving
And those who are mean,
I'm like a rock
The wind hasn't yet finished leveling.

There are days
When leaves on a tree turn black,
When – after such loving –
Women still hit their own children.

There are days
When you raise your aching heart
And surrender it to laughter,
A laughter in which you join.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

The light that floods the waking city is fabulous.
The shade under the trees holds coolness and a scent of night.
Lightly, gently to run up and touch the light
And turn into light.

Now and the next day, now and the next day, as well as a year from now,
That you should be happy. Staying beautiful and young.
Now the bees carry eternal honey into their hives,
It is the first day.

The first day without a trace of sorrow across the sky.
Or sign of misfortune. With no fear in the eyes of children.
To rise and knock your wings against an open window
And turn into light.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Crashed in like a mountain. Like a huge mountain.
Like the leafless trees. Grass without roots.
When there's nothing left ... Head hitting rock.
You'll go and laugh to yourself. It's where I live.

There are shadows behind every door, wall and window.
We'll smoke. We'll stay quiet. Being far from home
Will seem strange and good. After a drink of water.
Turn back and hello. It's where I live.

It's here that I live. Fern has bloomed.
A fake, glassy blossom. I go.
To stand there and wait. Or run after, yelling.
It's here that I live.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Earth was burning. They quenched the fires with snow.
How far away we were. How far ...
Red wine was turning to water.
Wounds opened up in rock.

Go home, children. You'll be afraid,
When it gets dark and the sun goes down.
I'll wipe the blood from your hands with grass,
Bending beside the quiet roads.

Go home, children. Black hen-birds
Are already flying near the black springs.
People are dying. They find me
Under the earth. Among forgotten church-hymns.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Quietly, they sing. It is a song
I can hear. A song without words.
Made of the smell of bitter mold.
On garments of dust and soot.

Quietly, they sing. So far away
You could reach them with your hand.
Already you can touch the flame.
A bridge burning, under the water.

They sing and sing deeply.
So to fall, face-down in the grass.
All roads merge underfoot,
An echo quietly lifts.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Once more, unawares, trees turn to char.
Hands blacken. You close the doors.
Seating yourself as a guest at your table
Right at the center of the great big earth.

Strange lights from huts way past the woods.
Barking of dogs and human talk.
Then you dream the fire again every night,
Stroking the flame with a trembling hand.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Onė Baliukonė is a poet and essayist. Born in the village of Kančėnai, she is a graduate of Vilnius University's department of Lithuanian Literature and Linguistics, and now works as an editor. Her poems were first published in 1968. Since then Baliukonytė has published six collections of poetry and one collection of essays. Her poetry is marked by a lofty lyrical tone and mental and emotional drama.