I WALKED OUT INTO LITHUANIA

I walked out into Lithuania.
There were birds, women and wind.

All the cows walked towards day,
And a large – brown – meadowlark
Fluttered and flapped in the wind.

Long wings and whisking rivers,
And all the women – butterflies,
My eyes grew over with grass,

And from the very depths of the grass
Animals turned red.

Was I there or wasn't I,
Or did I dream a clay dream?

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



TAKE ME TO ZARASAI

Take me to Zarasai
And show me your lakes.

For I'm a child of lakes –
Rippling – azure.

While daddy hammered millstones,
While mommy ground peas,
I was born there one day,
While goats gobbled in the hayfields.

Ten brothers, a crab in the lake,
Tippled milk. All day
Rabbits ran about the fallow fields,
A cow dug beneath the fence.

Old men labored there,
There they tasted a green cane.
Evenings they plaited bast-shoes,
Supped soup made of oats.

There, after the world war,
Many dead were found in the fields.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



WEAVED-FATE, THE SKULL AND THE ROSE

Fate will again be kind to me:
I'll find her stretched out on sand,-
the darkest rose, because the rye-harvest snows,
because my snow palace is a frame of dust;
I brought myself a skull and a rose
and fell asleep on searocks,
because black flames began to devour
the joy and happiness of passed days,
clear existence...

Fate will again be kind to me:
There, you and the sea, sleeping in sand,
and a black bird stiffened on your breasts,
and trees' poison, and a road song
fading as earth's pilgrims pass;
I lifted the skull, filled it with dark poison,
yearning for evening's cup,
great nights, there above old Rome
the blossom of my love will glow,
clear existence...

Fate will again be kind to me:
here is mother, here is the sea, and in the sand
glinting roses tell me: the great
dreams of childhood have disappeared,
your name echoes in the shifting snowdrift,
I scratched on a rock: in heaven
having heaped up God's thick sprouts,
long lost dreams will reappear,
clear existence...

Fate will again be kind to me:
sleep beneath the sea, in evening's sand,
bloodied swords no longer pierce
the face of the heathbell, large
and silent words sprout, widespread eyes, –
it is the lips of snow, a golden city,
the breast's nipple and a few blossoms,
clear existence...

Fate will again be kind to me:
I will rise again in the yellowed sand,
look, look, above my face it snows,
and the flames of earth turn bluer,
I picked an armful of dream sage
and fell asleep, and no one can wake me,
next to you, covered in sand,
a doubled sea plant will grow,
clear existence...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



LONGING FOR THE LORD'S ROSES

I longed for your roses, Lord:
azure wings – the cool of evening –
the voiceless ground – not long ago you promised me
more blossoms and happiness, and light,
I longed for your roses, Lord.

I longed for your roses, Lord:
but happiness died in the lime pit
of the cold ground, and the decaying fields
already cover me with darkness,
I longed for your roses, Lord.

I longed for your roses, Lord:
while death flashed through the gallows –
what remains for the poor pilgrim? Wind –
faster than love and thought,
I longed for your roses, Lord.

I longed for your roses, Lord:
high and clear heavenly homes
and the ocean's drone, and the smell of flowers
drifting from your lawns, painfully distant,
I longed for your roses, Lord.

I longed for your roses, Lord:
until my brother looped the cold noose
around my neck, until I drank the wine,
until I walked through azure dusk,
I longed for your roses, Lord...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



REPENTANCE: THE DEVIL'S BLOSSOM

And who now will wake the dead:
the endless ocean waters
poured over the dark sword, rusts
and reed leaves invite you there,
bright fire, and all around the sinister
winds of ravines, and the confused dog
barks by your face, and the wings of the angel
stop you from walking the road...

And who now will wake the dead:
I found the sweetbrier by the road
and said: within this halo watches
a thorny god, I give it to you,
bright fire, I spread myself wide ... midsummers
pant in the terrible
glare of the grass, when I, kneeling,
with my own hand murder myself...

And who now will wake the dead, –
I drank the dark blood, the moon
shined unnoticed, I might not have murdered,
but nettles grow green in the sun, and here
begins the pit of the useless,
and fires are so bright for the one who walks
that the devil's blossom and the waned moon split...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



GOD'S FAMILY

Once in the universe ripened
God's small family: a wife
and a small boy, who looked
at the great blue evening
with dark eyes,
and a husband – a brave musician,
a pleasant singer from the circus,
who loved to drink wine
the color of smoky grasses.

Once in the universe ripened
God's small family:
on wayworn legs the boy
carries an ant on his
palm toward the elderberry bush
swaying in the night...
The dark-eyed woman, alas, didn't know
why it was all necessary
and knitted far into the night.

Once in the universe ripened
God's small family,
and there is no one to tell now
what awaits them, what will
still be... Toward the dusty
elderberry falls the reddening
blossom of the stars,
and paled lips articulate
a single word: death...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE FEAST OF THE MINOTAURS

Eight without head feast,
and where did their heads go,
eight, eight, eight,
why are they all without heads?

   Eight, eight without heads
   without heads eight, eight,
   eight, eight, eight,
   the color of heaven and earth.

But where did their heads go,
but where did their heads go?

   Their heads walk over there,
   where God turned to wind
   where God turned to ice
   and promised us a bright future.

Their heads walk over there
and look for other heads,
there, where the end of life
is the color of heaven and earth.

   Eight without heads feast,
   without heads eight, eight,
   eight, eight, eight.

They hunger also for our heads...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



SEBASTIAN'S LAMENT, 1943

The nightingale voices of memory
led me, it was not
terrible tonight as I walked home,
and I said that I feared nothing,
the colors of red...

And then something
near the wasteland wrenched my arms,
I wanted to cry out, but in the stillness of flame
the devil flew across the sky, in the distance
fired arrows...

And the dark throng
gathered them and pierced me
until my blood glistened in the sand,
where will I find the grass to lie in,
the colors of red...

The void of the sands,
the blood of slaughterhouses, carrying her head
my mother passed me by, heaven,
I gathered your white blossoms,
wanted to weave them...

Alas, totally alone
the mute bodies wail in the water,
in the fire and the wind...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



SWEET-FLAG BLOSSOM

I'll pick the sweet-flag's
Blue blossoms,
My soul's blossoms,

Sweet-flag, sweet-flag!

I'll decorate the sweet-flag
With my soul's blossoms,
I'll give a blue blossom
To the sweet-flag branch,

Sweet-flag, sweet-flag!

I'll raise the sweet-flag's
Blue blossoms,
My soul's blossoms,

Sweet-flag, sweet-flag!

I'll love the sweet-flag's
Blue blossoms,
My soul's blossoms,
Sweet-flag, sweet-flag!...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



STEEP EYES OF WOODEN GODS

Steep eyes of wooden gods –
Are they not my
Not your eyes?

How close you are
My forefathers!

From where does wind tear the tracks
Of a hundred years from the roof?
Tracks, tracks,
Tracks and tracks –
Men
And their gods
Stopped.

Such crows,
Starlings,
Lived in the
Fifth and twelfth centuries.
An old man hammered a nest for the brown one,
The brown one's voice is brown and eternal.

How close you are
My forefathers!

They herded cows
And saddled horses,
Planted children 
And peas.

Drink.
Pray.
Pray.
Drink –
Gathered within me as if in the ground.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE SOWING OF FLAX

Near hawthorn hedge the dark-red haws
with reddish stones you ate, your lips half-ope',
I stood there long, the white wind was
still droning, swirling dust along the slope,
we talked and talked, the mistletoe swayed,
so green against birch-trees' white bark,
could I forget it? church in May,
the wavering sheen in gathering dark,
the new moon rose, the iron frogs
shrank in its light, impaled with quarrels
of strange design – how all this clogs
my mind! That spring is past... The sorrel
you plucked with rigid hands and mourned
me, strangers having brought the news
from town that I was dead, till dawn
you cried, and silver tears shed yews,
the sedge grew in the marsh, and then the snow
and ice hid all, and all seemed faraway,
were you alive? I did not know –
The April lapwings, echoes gone astray,
and frozen cranberries we gathered on the shore,
I know our love was of too brown a night,
I know it's sad, yet what's it for,
this world, and these sweet cherries bright,
sweet cherries hid in summer heat by snow,
what's this trip for, if solitude's my doom,
these apples and lilacs in the darkening glow...
I sowed my flax when hawthorn bloomed.
I sowed the golden seeds on clayey slopes,
when hawthorn bloomed, we loved and had fond hopes,
remember them in days of trial and gloom...

Translated by S. Roy



* * *

Did you really think I was coarse...
I just straddle the border between
Blind misfortune and wistful smile –
Me, the voice of my poor land.
That's what always makes me stop
By a woman, or tiny tot.

Translated by S. Roy



* * *

Blurred phantoms begin to shimmer white –
still shapes in the skies so restless at night.

I know that's your face taking form, although
I never saw dark give off such glow.

Stop chirping, cricket, stop and hark –
who's singing, sliding through the dark?

Translated by Peter Tempest



SONGS OF SUMMER

III

Near the flowing water shady sycamores
and tangles of sun, the whiteness of the earth!
the seam of grasses, and bewitching winds
fluttering in flames,
the pheasants...

look: the light of swallows
covers the gentle earth,
and that which was hidden
now rises like a shining spirit:

the quick-tempered whiteness of the shady sycamores
and the homelessness of my kin –
the red fins of fish
gleam at me in the bottomless waters

and the ringing water
whitewashes me,
the abyss of the fields, expanding with the landscape
I see the girl, big-breasted, small,
stretched on the meadow stones,

the late-coming swallows! the grassy voice
of David in the shade of the pines,
the marshland spirit
the lord of the owls
and holly, lamented Mary of the waters,
with you, chanted the rock veins,
I conjure you –
with plant crowns,
with heaven...


IV

I see the dreariness of the high skies
and the wormwoods, my white body
that tilts suddenly along
the shining vertical
toward the woman near the silent abyss...

they start to interweave,
and light-filled
ricks of shadows
echo in the water:
a bluebottle with breasts, and the stone,
o bluebird!
I grow restless

when the spirit that holds the seas
gently brightens:
the tall poplars – the cricket song
that skirts the oceans.

and a white metamorphosis
in the earth's light –
the night blossom of sad power...
and from the snowdrifts of the eternal horizon

in the clearing of blackthorns I carry
an oblong seashell...
snow-penguins
hold back the sea with their beaks...

gold covers the world, berry-stalks, –
they droop
in the endless night,
and near my head glows
the blue oriole ember...

my body sings...
o it's quiet,
the bluebottle, o the blossom,
o the stone...


V

The distant September star died,
and I still long to see
the jasmine,
lead me home
through the bright west wind, heaven

in the shadow of the speckled falcon –
the winged sheep of childhood –
the shepherd of mosses, the blackthorn
of dreams, the wreathed blossoming rock
that rustles in silence...

the world of deep abysses and chalk
for the angree silence without shore,
and who now will protect the field girl,
the grove grew over her breasts,

look, sister, see the dream
of the penguin, we will search for others:
there beneath the noble snails
the bodies of the ashberries will pale,
the thistles will rise,

in the blue northern light
the panting fall, the rye-flower,
with her – her reflections –
the white-bellied deer...
the eaglet, the lamb – eternally gentle
spirits,- animus
and hunger...

and afterwards everyone
is covered with fog –
the silent fanning of the long night...


VII

In the bright night, when souls waken,
in the darkness untangled by foxbats,
in the greatness of twilights,
in all the windless abysses in the high swollen
cold of the forests,

where women walk silently
with ravens (the timorous birds
hold their breasts
with narrowed wings!), having ripped up
the harmony of the earth,

the unfloundering roads
run through the freedom of the eternal rhododendrons:

they bow toward Rome: the bony elephants,
the horned terrapin, the loose-haired
stocky hawk kneeling near
the river,
o sweet-flag, half my face
in death tangles
in the greenbrier
leaves,

the silence of the white night – I'll speak –
Nothingness envelops the waters –
the silver abyss of the bullrush thicket –
the toad – the voice of the alder,
the snow
lamb – wooly Mary – the eyes
of fish – the deep heavy sleep
of the jasmine...


XII

And once, as the withering milkweeds
and moon stuck in my eyes,
the foaming earth, the landscape
sunk in the silver smoke, the lambs I could not see,

when silence wearied having grown
the blue rose of my dreams,
silence embraced the white sands
and the ocean  sky, there is no earth,
only a spirit of the blossoming hemp
of the night,
swallows, a shell
lying near the sea, the tall
blossom-covered awakened god
playing in the sun –

snails and pigeons
are also gods –
the giant white bleaks and

the tulip horn, green ferns
with people-heads, the white
crows, the snow's azure-beaks
Adam and Eve through the dream
seek the blossoming penguin,
but fish frolic, and the small
man catches the sleeping
white-winged dove, nudes
grown over with red flowers
carrying the squirming weasel,
the perfect oval
and the purple snow-hen
glitter in the olives...

the frog flies on the swallow
carrying a golden shell,
waving with jasmines –
the spirit –
the cormorant, the dead
of the world – the Providential cow –
the hundred-breasted sea...	

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE DREAMS OF WINTER

The flame flares in the Lord's hearth,
and the old bent woman,
having opened the door, near the empty hole
scratches a cross with her bony hand,
oh, once again sad days flicker before my eyes...

A star like a ruby reflects in the water
in the yard, runs restless-hearted through
the village, cries out, and near it
flutter the cowled wings of disaster,
oh, once again sad days flicker before my eyes...

That last oppressive coming of the night,
the dog barks and grunts, and you see:
in the white shawl of death fragile
traveler, do you lie in your grave?
oh, once again sad days flicker before my eyes...

And it's so bright, it's as if I see with
the eyes of another, I hear something like
skylark twitters on the other side,
above the shores of the endless seas,
oh, once again sad days flicker before my eyes...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A CONVERSATION WITH MARGO ABOUT THE TORMENTS OF HELL

                                            For Francois Villon

Once I wore God's halfboots,
now I go to serve in hell,
good-bye Margo! it's night, the eight
roadside crosses, the wafting smell of water
where the fishes spawn, preparing for their journey,
and the bones of the old nag, and the ember,
and the plaster angel, like you dear Margo,
and I am Beelzebub's brother, and left-handed

I cross myself, and from this hill
I turn toward paradise promising not to return
until on the black and hair-covered palm
of these hopeless vagrant hours
crazed Apollo will want to play
with the golden leaves... the green oaks...
don't laugh at the women, Villon,
with what whores do you lie in hell?

Margo, I see my spirit waiting
near the whorehouse gates, among the mad
glitterings and strange screams,
and death happily strings us together
like perches on one long thread:
and the one the five devils won't nuzzle,
and the one who wants it but won't offer,
and the one I butchered with my knife.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



GREAT DRINKING IN THE VALLEY

We live in the presence of death,
that's why we drink in the Lord's valley,
it was a holy day when death came,
the leaves of the eldertree were covered with dust,
and the locomotives wailed, dark crowds
waved at them with small flags, and
God was born again; a donkey,
from our imperfect souls, supported
by the landscape, said to him:
the doors of the world revolve... Wait,
the olive trees... Into the dark seas
we swam singing, the resorts
were packed, in Marseille,
where dragons rule, transistors,
and John sat
in the halo of whoredom,
the pale angel of apocalypse
promised him a plot of land... O the beauty
of singing in the valley, toil,
death will conquer the earth,
night is the brightest goddess,
but our ruin is more beautiful
and has the clearest face... The military salute's
wreaths and hothouses, the cabbages'
realistic landscape
and everything else we brought unwillingly
into the Lord's bright kingdom of flame...

O beautiful noble girl of my soul,
this is the death hour of your dreams.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE DREAM

In the white silence, which rings like the sea,
you were a ripened rose, and in dreams –
olive clusters, and shading your eyes
you saw how on the road in the blue distance
shine the heart's northern lights... the anger of the night,
death's pains and forgotten words
repeated by the Incas and Letts
and those who walk in silence to death,

into the tilted purple of Athens,
and the marble, and the straight profile
of a girl of Roman refrain,
old crystal, dark as a storm,
you heard: the anemone will open
then die, and your heart
will echo like a song
in your mouth, and the goblet

in your hand reflects the Acropolis,
when the sky shatters, in the distant night,
and old names long
and trembling echo and glitter... you
had no other dream,
piles of roses and hours,
the white Etruscan moss and winds,
saddened sister, chip of marble...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE OFFERING

Pick the words from the bloodroot, –
the fern spreads in the white fire,
tell me which lemon trees will wither,
death already fans the flames,
from where does the water of summer come,
why do the seas glitter and when should I write –
heart, the red gentians blossom! –
olive buds... your words

are strewn on the ground... in the white fire
lips whisper rock and bone,
children will all be reborn
in the shadowed depths, in the dream,
through the last feasting of my blood
crown the word,
give us the newly-silvered
olive smells and the colors of the heart...

those grasslands glinted beneath the dust
like eyes, and yellow queen
of the bluewhite scales, paler
than clouds, than A, than I, than O,
intercede for my fire, this nest of words,
rip it and tear it,
let my hopes and dreams
shatter now
in the soulless depths of the sea...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE GIRL BY THE SEA

While the child grew, on earth exploded
two of God's eyes – blossoming sprouts,
sing, sing, and if you meet a man
don't kill him, smile at him pleasantly,
the rolling golden gravel of the sea,
who will repeat your endless dream,
and on this earth you had melted
the heart of the coltsfoot, and the sprouts
of the cold night promise us longing and pain
and many blossoms, which turn blue in the dark,
oh the melancholy of blood, chalk,

this age, for your white race
the snails glittered on the shore
or your long tears, white
silk, a purple spirit,
when in May, in the bones of the olive tree,
you'll recognize your ancestor – it's sad,
sad, and everything else is cropped and bordered,
like the blood-stalk, the giant's blossoms
in the shade you well remember,
and everything else disappeared
and dribbles from the echoes of flame.

What is death in Ethiopia, flower or sun,
or your body, or breast once
swollen with milk, the eternal equator
spattered with whimsical blossoms,
girl of the fields, of the yellow stones,
weave a white mantilla for the nightingale,
you are the blossom's, the white anemone's,
the field carnation's, the eternal brine's,
the new stalk wakes up and hungers,
and many stars shine above our heads
and will wash our hearts with gold.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



IN THE NEW ARCHIPELAGOS

Save the grass – hazelhens fly there,
this world is red, the blue tint
of the cracked black archipelagos,
archipelago ago aguma...

Save the child – weeping beneath the window,
this world is red, the blue tint
of the cracked black archipelagos,
archipelago ago aguma...

Save the woman – like the tomato patch
this world is red, the blue tint
of the cracked black archipelagos,
archipelago ago aguma...

Save the butterfly – while it flies blind,
this world is red, the blue tint
of the cracked black archipelagos,
archipelago ago aguma...

Save the dog – the snow burns in drifts,
this world is red, the blue tint
of the cracked black archipelagos,
archipelago ago aguma...

Save the clock – what does time say,
this world is red, the blue tint
of the cracked black archipelagos,
archipelago ago aguma...

Save the sea – it turns blue, whispers,
this world is red, the blue tint
of the cracked black archipelagos,
archipelago ago aguma...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



EBBTIDE

The yellow sea swept in food,-
oblong shells, pearl necklaces,
and two hyacinth skulls
that stared with blue eyes: devils
began this long feast,
you shined with the ruby clarity
of starry nights, dreamed, longed,
a traveler of the earth's edge, –

like the Inca, Maya, or Aztec –
the exploded head of the blue-bottle,
the world's wide oceans echo, ebb
with doubled words, and sick and green
you have not yet glowed
in the trembling of the heart, o night,
having touched the clearness of May
with foaming rose shawls, echoing farewells,

and bullrushes glittered there
on the high banks, and pearl eyes,-
the world's days are foreign, and prayers
at midnight will steal your voice,
traveler, o child of bright loins,
death's dreams, hyacinths
bellow in the sand, you can shell
the sea-mollusk half-way on your journey...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE BEGINNING OF AN ORIENTAL SONATINA

Still  it seems bone and blood remember all 
stopping feet and groups as reddened parchment 
skin covered and covering sparkles 
light lines twisting to a sacred altar 
though you aren't a hetaera nor even an odalisque 
my bones and body recall everything 
it was white and pink and coppery and white 
all lifting uttered as swanlike belling 
slender lines held as a luxuriant arabesque 
old writing blossoming out of thighbones and hips 
and torso and a goblet of opening lips 
and tongue in the ear and scratchy bellybutton 
and lantern's olive-oil and the lamp 
pre-Han delicate waxen porcelain 
what's mine, God, is yours, not mine ... 
 
What's begun now I'm not able to stop 
sense and imagination convex and sparkle 
all that's touchable, visible, goes out of sight 
vizualized as waves to an outland shore 
without inferring it seems that ancient forms 
have their own holy vision 
not I writing, that's the other one writing through me 
he is death and life and heart's ornament 
vulgar and dark a cruel meteor 
not logic nor moulded earthenware 
boats stretch out on ancient empty shore 
nothing is understood of God and heaven's purpose 
merely sinews bones and blood and form 
of firebloom lillies sent by postage. 
 
lisping rushes wait in the manicured park 
discover their far-off stranger the forefather 
 
I pull on my dampened shirt and coat 
and take back blood and bone and lips 
you staying forever veiled and enfolded 
in bindweed wing and seashell and carapace 
and God's scorned spiral shell: 
I billow you wave I'm rinsed-out sand 
I'm a gypsy-laddie and Lorca you Flora I bone	 
I church you the bench and kneeler 
my hands on nails or lips swinging 
you the State I'm the Exchequer You Treasury I tribute 
you the watcher I your fearful prayers 
I hunter you deer you the offertory lamb 
you pasta me basta I'm a toothbrush. 
  
A blanket for weary feet to rest on 
where these offerings of fertility's milk & hope 
an endless eastern evening awaiting 
a phalanx setting out singing 
eye-blinding voracious locusts in an armored flotilla 
old enclosed-cattleshed  Columbus drowns 
two butterflies smell like forgotten fear 
on the Samalbo Cchinvali – Armenian road 
as if Lithuanians had perched on roofridges like doves 
flax  Vaizgantas' cross – benzine 
trousers-fly and an apple grinning 
drunk maple and a grove's prayers 
oakwood beret bullet machine-gungreen 
deathbed curse reborn eternally 
the devil's sad triangle a concocted doorway ...

Translated by Edward Reilly



FOUR QUARTETS 
 
			in memoriam T. S. Eliot
 
Spring, when beauty and tears are still dead, 
as cold wind has defeated both your raincoat & forest, 
blonde primrose unlocks heaven, 
coltsfoot grows on hills, like God's annunciation, 
who knows, with what God thinks: with grasses, horsetails 
stocklings and sunflowers – these modest blooms, 
which crawl out from the earth – like wolf-scythes, lillies, 
unveiling their colors to the world unafraid, 
o what color? not a voice? o with what indeed the Sun hymns? 
with what do winters summers sing? o why indeed is the tomtit ashamed 
to have to be by a window to set free his voice? 
in the village a puppy yowls with his yowling voice, 
a nightingale sings, you see, the beautiful trills 
are to some extent  called music, give, God, your blessings 
to me,it's even advisable to listen to an old cat, 
so this is what the season does, you will say, hang yourself 
on your own psalm's voice .... listen man, in autumn 
such moods fall down on you, likewise in Spring , 
but if you're going to hang oneself, do it in your own house 
so that the sobbing soul stays around 
we haven't  seen enough of such relicts 
and to hang yourself, you see, is tempting even if you get a cold, 
o this is such a Spring like Binkis knew, until 
the Gods bring other melodies, listen at least to a fieldlark, 
until we warm up, we must survey others' books 
we must search for one word, listen, 
is it possible that the Lithuanians' divinities are turning away 
whispering in the ear, they get in through the window 
is it that weavings like hops become clearer? 
I remember, Zukauskas comforted me in his old age 
it is not terrifying but tempting to go 
only that the Muses, the Muses seldom knock at the door, 
about Pegasus – nothing! Really did he ever exist? 
He wasn't even allowed to buy the pony 
 
as the Muses were drowning in Champagne foam, 
all stallions like devils in a cohort galloping in fields 
 
o marshalled stanza sprinkled with chemicals 
in every holy newspaper in the fourth verse 
had to be such an accent – to be or not to be. 
do you want to be deaf, better, without Lithuanians, 
if you're going to be, be red only, all others – vanished, 
gelded illusion, like two chooks by the shed, 
strolling into a kolchoz with bare bums rolling, 
coupling, laying, bums on seat, 
entering sitting – such a tree of seats, 
where to betake yourself, you'll not be there, you see, not stuck  
you'll not be staring with fixed eyes, like that cornflower. 
to one sitting on peaks, having bums, 
afterparts, pigcock, as if it popped out, 
see it now, and if spread out your own backside, 
beautifully not one brother of mine learnt to spread out : 
so how's it here with Pegasus, where so many horses vanished? 
handsome steeds used to neigh, only poets sniffed 
squatting on the wrong side, wrong end, until rivers, 
util our folk swam from cesspool to cesspool, 
not so, to tell the truth, he's cleaned, scrubbed himself 
but it stinks here in Lithuania! Where shall God stick his nose? 
where? not your affair! when you croak, you'll know! 
while I was so beautifully chatting, Summer came, 
so I don't want it, you don't want to hear fresh wind, 
which used to blow in from the noreast, from the west, icy 
decayed our north wind, like those wooden huts, 
sunk like black earrings into blackearth, clay 
neither of hill-fort nor goblin, unless it's some Apuolo, 
unless some dwarf did not sink backwards into despair 
laggard hills are obliterated, but folk, as you travel 
with tanks and cannon, drag their feet, 
so preventing that shove into the grave, but then they bent, fold 
into the earth through early Winter & early Spring: 
the lowlanders arrived, highlanders left 
southerners, Poles, Germans & wandering Russians, 
 
each asking in their own way – is it possible? what's the truth? 
Might is as hypocrite as Time, man's 
foible, heaven's and hell's, and the horn is blasting 
for Jew, Catholic, sly Moslem 
as you don't have a barometer, as did dead Donelaitis, 
like a clanking tractor, out of the lindens, 
like a postman carrying a rushed telegram, 
you have to travel to the graveyard to bury your lady, 
I saw Aristotle, I am a clever student, 
but none yet learnt, how to die, Holy God, 
somehow all of us will die, only who will bury whom 
when the stars as on Kant, have been scattered 
though the laws are working, but the people love the cellars 
and if you aim truly, don't fear, you'll tumble in 
we all survived at Rupke's in the kingdom, 
only the Sun bribed through heaven unequally, 
marked off for each some already, it measure for me and you 
you'll choke talking, that you stir your feet –  
o beauty I promised to sing, you see beauty alone, 
but it seems at that time I will have to thow up – 
a poetess I knew, sang beautifully 
but, when the stars changed, hardly got a little job 
I had true ox, heaven's philosopher, 
but under this dome of heaven agonizes over her no longer, 
yet one other stayed, like Benediktus over there, 
who portrayed the Pope, on whom the verdict will be given! 
not to be envied, will cut this bird's wings, 
there is a Lithuanian, can hardly turn his tongue 
however in heaven & earth the greatest mountain turns! 
coil, my fugues, clear your road, 
shove a thin finger between squashed-together knees, 
Vaičaitis sings yet, but he died, too early, 
on hearing me raving, you avoided me, 
now dressed up, again all with a fig's 
budding leaves, you don't get a fig 
to smell from God, patriots of the mounds, 
one end for each one here, and your wolves' matins 
great my brother, who newly grown began to crow 
 
while I was with brother moles dug up a garden 
while a baby in China tasted earth, 
takes to belching heartfully, as if hit in the snout 
all around us the world ... each one turns an eye, 
each with braided belts, like the forest badger; 
echo sonatinas, before going out on a pension, 
then truly plop the gradener's sweet fruits, 
there's grandpa's walkingstick and flail by the cowsheds 
when the white tree dries out, 
		there will be somewhere to hang myself! 

Translated by Edward Reilly



BILHANA

The First Weaving

And I know what I wanted to say: 
the snow of shadows, tempestuously circling 
the woman's breast, the blueness of the seas, 
that girl turning to white – the day 
with its light hair touches the azure thread 
and listens to the language of the glittering sword 
and the green sweet-flag by the sea, and the wind, 
and those memories that once wavered 
above me like wreaths of flame.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
the arch is tipped – the cornice of rock –  
the cavity of the mouth – the frosted curve of the breast, 
where the swallows of spring settle, 
where the shadow of darkness lies, the line 
of your shadowed body the length of fingers, heart, 
it is sun, hornbeam, grasshopper, memories 
and layers of brown sand, hopes –  
the garments of earth's multicolored, silence.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
dust-filled palaces of dark jasper 
and the oriole on the blue of the bullrush, 
and our clear water, you will disappear 
because you walk along ridges of snow, 
a creature of green roots, what flutters 
above the windows? the returning stork? 
the guests of night – the smoky color of the fields, 
the broken mirror, at whose bottom sigh 
the supple shapes of those we love.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
the gallant language of the waters, 
the reverie of stones and in the cup 
the doubled flatness of the azure sea – shining 
they comfort me as I speak quietly: 
you are the night's, the fern's, the woman's, the wind's, 
moonlight sparkling, for eternity, 
when the grain of sand rises, when you 
are spattered by the swooning greenness of the earth.


The Second Weaving

And I know what I wanted to say: 
near the ravines, chalky, sandy, 
the rivers flow, while I hold you 
in the bottomless light, while roots spread 
in the depths of the seas, enchanted nights 
fill the earth with glittering flames 
from my lips; the gentle bilingual 
plant opens, and the circling wind 
blinds me, flame-colored nothingness 
mutely repeats itself this night, 
and storms howl, until you rise 
and wander through a cold meaningless night 
hopelessly searching for stars.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
above the fields in soulless moonlight 
my voice will echo in the distance 
with the radiance of white fruits, and once 
I will hood myself even bluer, and one 
rumor will be brought to us bitterly ripening, 
enveloped by fans of leaves – the blackening 
bird-cherry brings us fall; 
ravines shimmer with rowan trees, 
near those abysses where the gravel rolls, 
the star glints, swimming quietly 
like variegated radiant coral 
I will touch you as you sleep.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
the breadth of bright rivers, and 
the fruits in your garden will ripen, having named 
the elder, the lilac, the word lashes 
the reed like a white god in the distance, 
it was a silver berry stalk, 
the shadow of the earth-enveloping day; 
into your gold, your moonlight, 
into the windless twilight of your lips 
he bent the green sweet-flag, showed
 the shell-encrusted bottom, shadowed nothingness, 
of the blossomed face, the seas' white snow, 
the lips' frost-covered semicircle deepened 
flooded by an infinite distance.


The Third Weaving

And I know what I wanted to say: 
birds already sing in the earth's larch trees, 
and after winter our dreams are once again bright, 
the line of valleys and hills, the chords 
of the bird-cherry tree by the house –  
the wind quietly chases its colors, 
and blood flows from the king's cards; 
like white down, the dove of summer, 
the life-giving rays of a golden morning 
gliding across your naked shoulder 
will turn, lost, to God's grim twilight, 
but your eyes glitter like a blossom 
deep in the fields, panting, blue, 
we were stalks of nothing, without a place, 
blue alder, why did you live, 
why are you part of the madness of life and death, 
if the white leaf of love did not open 
in the echoing smoke-colored mansions in the wild.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
once on the shores of icy oceans 
we were shut away, the winds howled, 
the seas' weightless silhouettes, the red 
shapes of roses, changed, 
we would have suffocated, our love 
searched for birds, the strange touch 
of the limestone shore and the hornbeam, 
then we awakened and saw – white 
stone and moon, radiant names 
we walked, the wormwoods bowed near the gates, 
they offered long clusters of blossoms 
and the dark planes cracked and split, 
wearied by frost, near his angry brow 
neglected trees stretched toward dawn, 
wreathes of violet, silent roots, 
the salty sea – we all moved toward 
summer, condemned to love.


The Fourth Weaving

And I know what I wanted to say: 
the dawning morning given as a gift to me, 
oval dahlias above the windows, 
and a dog – fire – as it began to bark 
also uttered its word to the night 
after your lingering kisses –  
light dispersed through the frost, the fern, 
did the gray nightingales see 
the boundlessness of heaven and the fiery plane 
where roses scatter thorny reflections 
above the Lord's radiating eyes?

And I know what I wanted to say: 
do not gather dahlias in the middle of night 
in the white land where chalk is mined 
where the overhanging sycamores gently sway, 
why does the long vault of the sky sink ever lower? 
They are your brothers, you led us 
to death, to olive branches, so 
I thank you, ah, thank you, without touching 
your eyes, land, the white blossomed 
hour of the princely flamingo  –  
sleep and be still in its depths.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
while waves have not stilled on their planes, 
while I walk into white distances, 
we are given this rhythm
for the purest weaving, untouched 
by the radiance of heaven – days 
for the golden swallow – they will weave 
a coarse fabric – you saw
the blackthorn not long ago – it called you 
to the moon above the seas – how terrifying 
to understand the depths of the dreams of night.


The Fifth Weaving

And I know what I wanted to say: 
while you, my sister, were still living, 
the spaciousness of earth was easier for me, 
then I saw how darkened fogs 
come toward the nettles and the house, 
how snow covers the forget-me-nots, 
while the white veil of the forests, the white distance 
and the azure plane call us there –  
embarrassments of the blue hours before dawn.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
to the mouth of the horse-tail, the reddish flamingo 
in the depths of the forest – the Lord's dancers –  
who will bring me your tiny head 
if the winds plait the signs of evening 
and the moon's cycles do not increase, 
and the foliage of the sea is blessed, 
but in that heaven, that I mentioned in passing, 
no one will hear me beginning to sing.

And I know what I wanted to say: 
the currency of love has worn away, silence, 
accompany the swallow – I saw 
the lotus of the seas' white wind swaying, 
I promised my brothers a bouquet of flowers, 
but everything died in the advance of the sands, 
on the hard threshold, the old sword, 
spread out garments of cambric and rough wool 
and kneel silently with a vital heart.

And I know what I wanted to say:
a traveller from far away – I returned,
the maple awakened – who then was silent 
in the palace of might, the bottom of the well? 
twinkling stars... my sisters went out 
into the voiceless storm, you alone remained 
there, where the aureole of earth sparkles 
in the spring, the bent or the buckthorn's lair, 
brimming with the whispered words of love.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



SONGS OF AUTUMN

I

Death, having tasted the promised fruit 
and having drunk the drops of this autumn, 
I thought: silvered maple, 
why am I so unlike the shining

Of the earth ... O golden reflection, 
having played in our souls! The sky 
is endless... O seduction 
of distance! When young 
once I watched a grasshopper: 
having thrown himself in the green expanse 
of the fields – he belonged to the gods... 
I would be happy 
having found a friend – a dove, 
a high wall of nettles, reflections of green.

In the small cracks of the moraine 
I would be comforted, like the sweet-flag by shivering, 
by the light and elegant growths of the earth. 
And my feet would touch 
the wandering copper sedge, 
sister of my dusty distant road... You were, o soul. 
The blue flame of the hearths of home, 
in the earth, in the heart of the couch-grass 
is a blossom... Rivers,

their shadows do not die and do not fall, 
at night they rustle 
summer, that fastidious blossoming 
of the bindweed... What else are you saying, 
gloomy spirit by the well?...
From wild wormwood, from bird-cherries 
her neck, 
she turns her eyes, 
awakened she watches, bowing 
her head... She knows everything.

Your blossoming crown and voice 
you promise to the gods, 
o earth!

The secret of the soul
Could embrace the white shadow of the rose...


II

All around high tangled cranberry bushes 
in the dream raised their glittering branches 
to the shade of snow... Autumn has come 
and I say: o earth, 
embraced by nettles, alders, 
the dewed voice of the 
crickets, how beautiful 
that radiance: 
ragged gardens, 
among the willows 
the springs white age, 
the distant music...

You see the naked copper hillside, 
earth... When I go, 
put leaves of shadow 
on hills of snow... We have sung already 
and evening has come, alder, I ask 
your spirit,
the green blossom, 
that greenest of all... Don't leave me.

Dead grasses gleam... 
The oak of my childhood – I ask 
for a voice – a sleepwalker, a panting spirit 
in the cricket's song... And evening, 
touch my face again with a cool hour...

In the spring I saw 
the violet, it spread 
God's leaf, the peewit flew 
across the darkness of the rivers, 
it was wreathed 
with blossoms of flame, 
and the rivers: your feet 
have joints of flowers, 
you flow across the flatlands 
comforting the bindweed... O night,

Give me your shadow, 
the covetous bent in the sand, 
its voice: the shade of fire, 
the spirit of fall... Ah, the 
white sands already stir 
at the foot of heaven, 
where my soul is – the earth's nettle...


III

In my youth a bottomless pit 
of fire opened like a dream suddenly 
before me... I trembled... 
Stay a moment, a voice said to me: 
blue reeds sway 
there in the distance 
near the abyss of sand...

Summer dawned... I would walk 
along the leaf-encrusted river 
banks... Blossoming night – 
dandelions are snow... and an unknown 
power (I remembered 
the sighing violet...) pulled me 
into the shadows of the roads.

And birds there, 
the horned creatures, 
dived obliquely 
into the sun's fire, and 
the dune grasses, and the reborn spirit... 
Rejoice – said the ripened 
stems of bluebottles... 
the hoar-frost covered shell 
is already opening; 
the landscapes, they 
were neglected 
but in the Distant Old Moon 
in the fire awakens the Mute 
of the Plants... It is a secret 
of the humming sands...

The crowned ocean islands 
bow to him, 
the shell, the moon and 
this night (a green 
star hums around 
its head...), 
it pulsates 
beneath the azure shells...

From the distance, from the white 
echo of the sea 
his body – the earth's 
endless nights...


IV

Rays of anger fell
into my soul, and then it became
somewhat easier. Now 
I no longer fear the endless night: 
with me breathed 
the stream by the sea...

They speak – ocean leaves 
broad as a bright 
chasm, later a high 
river valley rises: 
a silt-covered swallow 
with a blue beak 
gathers its destiny 
(where summer raged, 
when the somber sands covered all...)

It's bright – at least 
read the Lord's name 
in the bottomless echoes 
of the great abysses! 
High above a skylark
flutters without a sound, 
and the flax – autumn 
weaves its golden vest... 
and its green body 
has not been seen – a cracked 
marble cliff...

O reeds, you are sisters 
of feathers! As autumn comes 
you would live with the grasshopper, 
but that gentle rock-like echoing 
of the forests, the rain-washed 
voice of the sands...

The white oval 
of the sky still shimmers 
and my lips utter 
an unfamiliar name...


V

Something stirred the heavens 
with fans of night, and it was easy 
for the animals to breathe... But I 
said – stop...

Once you blossomed 
near the ocean waves –  
with a dewed tulip flowers... 
And I was 
at peace... He 
is no longer here, having been able 
to stretch midday 
out at the feet of peonies... 
Within the 
nightingale... It drinks 
the chalice of dreams, 
its body elemental, 
its chasms narrow...

And I descended 
into the ocean silt, 
in the flaming mountain ridges 
I saw a two-faced bird, 
a blue-headed auroch...

They did not let me 
near, but the bull of the seas called 
to the earth: the skylark –  
is the father...
do not dare touch the moss –  
you will harm the soul of the gods, 
and the spirit will lose itself 
without the dome of heaven...

And there will be no blue dawns... 
White plants fall to earth, 
where faces turned blue 
cut off from the blossoming shadows...


VI

You enchant, bluebottle abyss 
that none will let my soul 
enter: lips of 
sand, a plant 
like fire

You hold in darkness 
nestle in your palms 
lilac earth... 
In an animal's footprint 
there is a greening spirit –  
it casts spells, 
the frothy ocean bottom –  
it sees 
and renews, and with a blue

Voice a dove speaks –  
sometimes a man... 
The girl turns her thin 
beak toward a fluttering snail...
I hear a timid swallow
pant...

The ocean's masked bottom
draws near: the world –
just one, and the
spirit – 
imperceptible... An oval – 
its red embrace...

You're born, and moonlight's
white strength 
envelops you,
until you return again to the new 
moon, to a wide 
ocean isle...
It grows and spreads... 
The unknown secret 
of this thing...


VII

So I found myself in the high 
depths of the sea, around me 
loomed cliffs, and then –  
how beautiful, I said, bower 
of autumn, this space is covered 
by the hour of the seas...

as if a star 
breathed into my face, 
and having stolen the lights 
from night, the burdock 
will weave itself 
an eternal crown, – I will go 
alone across 
the hills... You were crowned 
with the hoar-frosted wreaths

of the seas, o days... 
I built myself a palace 
of hyacinth, they brushed 
across my face, 
grayness, having come, 
opened the calcified 
landscape 
there the rose sang, 
a tiny prince
touched a shell never seen before... 
But the winds – they 
began to blow from the sea, 
and covered the blackthorn with sand...

A city rose. High, 
purple, it slid 
to the skies. Endless, leaf-covered 
appearances of plants 
(o, all the peonies 
by the sea are wilting!..) 
satanic spirits united 
and soared...

I did not have the strength 
to stop there... O cricket 
of this dark autumn night! 
You sing about the plain, 
that flatness where the alders sing, 
eternally asleep in that beautiful 
expanse of water and sky...


VIII

Damp autumn. And it penetrates 
the bones. Sea plants 
have turned blue in strips... I remembered 
the weeping girl, 
the lily's lips...

My foolish grasshopper 
is silent. The ocean's face 
stretches, and I angrily
say: I will open 
a patch of blue... 
There is the ocean valley 
plowed by the old ones, 
they walk to the fields 
swaying beneath the cactuses, 
the wolf and bear 
would come to the woman 
from the ocean clay...
This is the earth of twilight, 
of the angry northern creatures, 
of the life of the sands...

Before death they begin 
to fly, spirits... 
My girl! You are from that night, 
in you pulses the slow 
plant of these sands, 
you have been overgrown 
by the foliage of the sea: 
feathered feet, and 
breast, and laughter... 
You have been bound by the muscular Distant One 
of the Sands, he does not 
let you go...

A secret, it speaks 
only with your 
body, the dish of anger, 
the memory of the seas, the foaming 
tureen, cracking 
it echoes, 
and the distant landscape

the blue 
fire-ripened 
night...


IX

No one led me 
any further... The dark 
shaded hills blended together, 
burned with fiery
reflections...
The dark waters of the wide 
seas... In the silence 
of night the beautifully foliating 
stream, the grasshopper stopped –  
a tinkling song... Once 
I rejoiced, but now the blackened 
heavy-rained mouths 
of the deep ravines... 
In carved caverns 
of ice, in the dark ocean 
bay, in a circle 
in the white sand 
glittered copper-colored skeletons...

You are beautiful as you walk 
the blue dome of heaven, 
convex above the earth, 
spirit, and they accompany us, 
they always shine 
within us, the green 
ocean valleys... 
Is there something in man's soul 
that does not fit into his shadow?

O bones, washed by 
the silver seas... 
This is the gray moonlight 
of our dreams... 
What does it mean? 
What marks does it make 
on the Great Full Moon?


X

Gone is the ocean's summer 
when the crowned skylarks 
swam through the sky... Now
there is only flint at the edge
of the fields or a late
echo...

Rustling – nameless swallows 
gleam above the glacier... 
Ah, like the soul –  
promised a shell of iron 
by the autumn rains... 
Rest... But sometimes 
the sand's joints are stirred 
and stitched by the wind, 
and then brought back... And God's 
blue seed scratches once again...

Sleep beneath the oak tree, 
perhaps you'll dream of the earth 
turning blue... Those 
ravines – you remember them 
on the road.. The mute 
autumnal goddess waves – she 
called you with quiet 
unease... 
Beneath the moon the shells of earth moved 
and endless winds began to howl...

Then you saw the creature approaching: 
it slid slowly across the greenish plain –  
the foaming ocean serpent opened 
a new earth: 
a woman's head 
and half-body 
and wings –  
she soared (how the ocean 
sings in my mother's garden...) 
high above the forests, in the heavens...

Her eyes and her lips are clear, 
but the earth was enveloped by light from the abyss.
You touched that passionless body 
and lost your beauty and your youth...


XI

Lord, give me a golden spider web 
and a single day of sulfur hues... 
I want to talk to my grasshopper, 
the chosen one of God...

Open-lipped, 
you showed me lakes 
and all around rocked high 
middays (under the seas roamed 
the Lord's arrogant 
ladybug...) turned blue 
in the endless summer...

Into the gloomy ember 
into the fog of night 
I brought my woman: 
the grove, forest and blossoms 
unplaited her strawberry 
hair... The toad 
wound around the endless earth – spring's larkspur 
and there, in the snow, disappeared untouched...

The sea's greenness descended,
darkened our bones... 
Root of summer, the oriole sang 
by the gray sea: 
I will bring you the word: 
reddening, autumn will come...

To all those I loved 
I will bring the word, I say, 
deer covered with frost
wade through the puddles, 
the star above the bogs, 
the lowness of the sands... She sings, 
my snow-dusted woman, 
and in my homeland's summer 
winter rages...

I wanted to bid farewell to my stream 
but could not find it near the sea, 
only the ocean's endless wind echoes 
and I awakened then again

To a new journey... Sand of brass, 
I want to return to the forest 
where the hornbeam hums,
to the oak trees 
where my sisters and 
brothers sit, where under the bench 
the dog quivers in dreams... 
Where the water in the well sings quietly, 
the bird-cherry tree – it long fed my soul, 
my homeland's gray ray of light!..

A scrawny hen scratched in the barn, 
I watched her grandmother, that purple 
beauty, once,
but such sights have quickly vanished, 
they are the will of God... 
Now cover me again, 
for a peaceful hour, 
o fern of evening...

In the old times – a bull – I loved to plow: 
in the glittering of green springs 
all my forefathers, gathered together, 
would plant bluish turnips,
slept among the sweet-flags, and wolves 
could be killed with clubs... 
O God, God, what angry 
winds, how the frosts of autumn 
trouble my soul... What hoarfrost 
on this icy evening –  
mindless – blew away this layer of sand...

My father's kindling lamp gleams there: 
he sits handsomely in the saddle 
of shell... The blueness of the eternal 
seas... The evening waters 
flood the plain... My sister, 
I see you flying 
there, where the heavens are green, shoreless, 
where the gray skies 
suddenly open...

Return in the blink of an eye to the fence of nettles, 
to the Distant Azure Purple, 
to the loam rose, to the oriole's song –  
The Mouth of Snow eternally tells me no...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A POEM FOR ARVYDAS

Arvydas, the field of love – it's me, 
three years old lying an the bank of Teiraus Lake 
on an old wet linen shirt 
my mother had made when we lived 
in the small and dreary cottage, crayfish, the ones I caught, 
quickly ran away, ran away 
like my thoughts and my feelings, like 
our nation's, the way rabbits you 
raised in Panevėžys ran away, thinking themselves gods, 
I lie or float through the reeds, grasping 
crayfish with two toes of my left foot, 
the cove, the sand, when the pikes spawn 
and people are reborn! I grasp everything, 
is touching love? No, it's fear, 
secret, that they will bite off 
your organ of life, loving fish, 
loving your father, taking us home 
on the old boat, as our eyes close, 
carp the next morning in the boat, 
they stare with their yellowish or whitish 
ghostly eyes, stare 
at Lithuania, which had conquered the Romans, 
the Parthenon is gone, Euridice is gone, 
jumping in to swim, 
Homer is gone (they put out his eyes 
drinking whiskey). Does anyone 
want to be a poet or to jump into the Danes 
canal? We will not replace that lost 
crown: the king is gone, he died 
catching dungbeetles 
in Japan, researching the very noblest 
fish in the world! How lovely Around the dungbeetle 
revolves Egyptian history, the scarab, 
ah the scarab, the most noble inhabitant
of pyramidal shadows, here I could insert 
an excerpt from the Book of the Dead, 
about embalming, the future, the dried 
rose of skulls that lies in Kaunas, 
it is Tiškevičius, who loved baptizing horses 
with ancient ducal names: what 
nimble steeds: Kęstutis or Birutė 
the mare I kept after the war 
don't try to take her by the halter, 
she knocked my father down, he was sick, 
like the world, like Lithuania, with an illness 
from which we must rise to spirit, 
not into the micro or macrocosmos, but into that 
which is undefined – – –

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Into yourself or that single heart that hungers 
for the peace of sage and hunting ducks, 
stones or the peace of the grasshopper and the ants, 
reflecting in the blueness of the plums – – – 

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



LIFE WITH LOKE

White pearls on the mountain, the grains blossom in autumn 
and your dark hair – catching wind. 
You will say to the tulip petal – red in the middle of winter  
– it is more difficult for a man to raise a child than to chop 
himself with a sword. 
In a small child's breathing, in a girl's belly life to come  
– an old woman sits there mornings on a field stone. 
To grab wind, to grab wind by the hair or by the wing – you 
will never fall asleep in a wooden storeroom near the wall. 
Somewhere things are always weighed, great scales tip, my sins 
and yours, to intercede before God on behalf of the skylark's 
brown clothing. 
1570 in the battle of the Hellespont Cervantes' hand was torn off, 
and the plagues then stopped their invasion of Europe.

– – – –

For the seas to come will be yours, and ours now is only the azure 
and eternal emptiness of space. 
The Basques stopped plagues, so the blind boatswain – a Basque  
– who led Columbus to America could be born. 
Because the truths of the universe constantly change, like 
whims – yours and mine. 
The lamb there, born before winter, before darkness a small 
	church 
in Iceland among the glaciers. 
Seals pray there and wonderful tumbrels rattle.

– – – –

The starling slides in again, covering space, where I was born, 
the crab crawls through the silt an Trakai, while in Vilijampolė 
the elm tree opens. 
Everything returns, two bullets on the table, yellow, a hand, 
five fingers and a knife. 
A rusted nail through the palm, the hand that caressed my head in 
Tibet.
A solitary station, a stop and snow-drifted forests, where the 
Autobus waits (doesn't it bring us to death), and when it is
terribly hard a person hears sighing – as if from the other side. 
Protect the Animal, the Autobus, the Autumnal Light That Passes.

- – – –

Take one-seventh of the horse's blood and dilute it with water on 
the Thursday before Easter – so the child would grow up strong. 
The horse crawls to the east with the serpent, the dark horoscope 
of water.
In Parousia – I want to be helpful in the final act. .
The poet sits on the edge of the bed, and across it a small child. 
From there, from the black depths of madness, small skylark bells 
will call us to gather violets.
The frog there and the cock's reddish-black comb, the frog sticks 
its head out of the waters, I'm afraid – she is the old judge of 
death.
Cervantes with his torn off hand and Byron in purple robes 
	wander at night among the Turkish graves.
FROGHORSESNOUTANDSWORD

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



IMPRINTS OF SNOWY LIPS

Crows in the hoar-frosted birches, horses that look something 
like fish. 
Divinities of heaven's waters and snow, and snow, falling out 
of my white head. 
Snow, so white, and voices of crows, like a person – to give 
at least five signs. 
And a tear? Has someone written about tears, about those that 
never are? 
An old mirror – kick with your feet, catch wind in the fields, 
catch wind. 
How glass is made: perhaps in ancient Babylon they knew better 
than we. 
When you approach that border, you must pay for everything 
	with 
death, with death, ancient dying in heaven's golden fields. 
Snow and snow from my white head, stamp on the seal, not with 
a horse's hoof but with a bloody broad-sword.

– – – –

Something green is growing in my head, there is so much snow, 
no one can travel, so much snow, no one can travel. 
For a man, living alone, nails and hair grow terribly fast, he 
returns to the world of horn. 
Roots, the greenness of roots, from which leaves will suddenly 
shine. 
Two red children and two green leaves – what a difference. 
Summer or winter, fish great and wide-mouthed, as if they 
were hungering to swallow the world. 
The sun, so beautifully and yellowishly warming my aging head. 
SummerSnowWater – three unforgettable colors. 
BlackWhiteLight – something moaned in the world.

– – – –

The angel walks with gray and rustling wings, and the North 
somewhere unites with the Sun, toward Paris solitary Rodin 
walks through the foggy valley with shoes of uncured leather, 
a green crab or seedling following after.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



SPRING TRAVELLER

I

in the great 
erecting 
mansion 
of March 
a man 
or animal 
with blue
wings 
perhaps it's 
only a 
vision 
which 
like smoke 
will dull 
with the dreams 
of morning

o no
really 
someone 
is coming 
with a soldier's 
shoes 
reddish 
mantilla 
across failed 
fields 
at any 
price 
the head 
forces its way 
into the space 
of the earth
where I 
tormented myself 
all winter 
with my 
feeble 
interrogations 
and sickness 
where is 
that butterfly from 
and godly 
power 
with which 
he tears 
despair 
each morning


II

he tears 
despair 
with furious 
wings 
he beats 
the heavens 
like an albatross 
not from 
Baudelaire 
and not from 
that part of 
the second 
symphony 
with ancient 
echoes

he knocked against me 
with his crooked 
wing 
and I
don't want 
to see him 
at all

I was free 
a long 
time 
among the free 
and breathed 
the earth's 
damned 
air

strange 
gestures 
face 
and color 
I don't need 
his silver 
sage 
head 
it whitened 
long ago

and the hand 
offering 
peace 
and quiet 
but I cannot
tell
the ocean
from a puddle


III

I cannot tell 
the ocean 
from
puddles 
water 
of spring 
which 
with all 
its voices 
resounds 
having poured 
a goblet 
of blood 
from the moon

on the dirty 
head 
of this 
city 
on Birzai 
and Nemakščiai 
Lithuania 
where that 
same 
being 
will lie down

we 
sensed 
it 
barely barely 
from the 
movements 
of our hand 
and wrist

from that 
which happens 
on earth 
from all


IV

the unwashed 
city's 
great 
head 
that same 
nightmare 
into which 
we returned 
from a dream 
Lithuania 
having escaped 
from Mindaugas 
and the cross

satan's 
dream 
is not horrible 
from where 
now 
to dig 
new 
hope 
deify 
the sand 
and the voices 
of fish

we did not
create it	
and we will not
destroy it
hurry
glorify
the lungs
and bones


V

later 
having deified 
yourself 
run away 
there are enough 
madmen 
in the world

we will
remain 
a small 
postcard 
on 
a human 
crushing 
and 
glorifying 
tank

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A GRASSHOPPER IN MORNING LIGHT

Poetry – a spirit enclosed between two words or periods, that 
	 which cannot be caught. 
Close up the uncatchalble bird. So it will also be free. 
Metaphor – a bird that flutters in space on one wing. 
You hold it by the other. 
Poetry or heavy breathing. 
As if unfinished. 
To stop at a point which is, in fact, illusory. 
A temporary point: like jaguars before leaping, grabbing the 
	victim.
Poetry – that same space which was allowed to be seen in 
	ancient Egypt.
The poet, when not creating, can commit a transgression.
Out of despair.
Unconsciously. Out of self-loathing. Like a sick man.
While creating you think you alone see. Hence the desire to 
	show others as well.
Creativity's focus: all relations among things are possible.
A tree – in a glass. It matters that it would appear as if made 
	by God Himself.
Glorification of naturalism: to take finished things and place 
	them together as you prefer.
A game of existing forms. Beautiful or horrible. A harmonious 
	hour – whichever you want:
a demiurge on the seaside sand.
The ocean in your hand, and in that ocean – shells.
The poet sleeps with women, and in his hand a live white-bellied 
swallow.
I had captured that spirit for only a short time. I breathed 
	heavily and on the current of air 
from my mouth floated small birds and fish.
A grasshopper and a blossoming ancient stone.
 	GRASSHOPPERANDBLOSSOMIN 
	GOD'SSWALLOW 
	GRASSHOPPERANDGOD 
	HEAND 
	GRASSHOPPERANDSUN 
	ANDGREEN 
	HEAND 
	GRASSHOPPERANDGREE 
	HEAND 
	GRASSHOPPERANDSTONES 
	GRASSHOPPERAROUND 
	GRASSHOPPERANDAROUND 
	IS 
To unravel the tree of language – to unravel the relations of 
	the world. 
Throw off from yourself the net with which we catch the world. 
To build the universe anew. 
That which was on top must find itself on the bottom. 
Vertical – horizontal. 
Write everything anew. 
That's how we will understand the whole again. 
Everything is united but only while creating. 
A person shifts things not in nature but in his soul. 
Creativity takes place in the internal space. 
Behind the eyes and brow. In the bottom of the eyes. 
Perhaps that's why endless azure space is necessary. 
The bottom of the eyes. The ocean. Arches. 
The necessity of arches. 
A shell will open in the sea and a man will stick out his head. 
A straightened arch – flatness – scores of tiny figures. 
Birds – fish – people. 
Alive. Eternal forms. 
Because it is not the ideal form that dies, not the, prototype, but 
	one of its variants. 
Everything would survive even if the world died. 
My mother went there, having taken her bones from the ground. 
Creativity – a terrible godlessness. 
Walliing against the divine will. 
Who what?
He. But then again – only one, the temporary blood and bone, 
	water, having filled the eternal form.
Taking the eternal forms from God, as if pots and pans from the 
housekeeper, we come to equal Him.
Two ladybugs in apocalyptic light.
Two ladybugs and a stmalll falcon on your hand.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A STARLING BENEATH THE MOON

when 
the starling 
black 
bird 
of life 
and death 
flies

death 
as you breathe 
carnations 
sprout

the black 
bird 
of life 
and death 
flies 
fluttering 
and its 
wings 
touch 
the powerful 
space 
of meaninglessness

it is 
a starling 
that flutters 
black 
wings 
of meaninglessness
in the light 
of water 
burying 
my dead 
mother

death 
which 
flutters 
with the starling's 
black 
wings 
above 
our 
lives

I approached 
the land 
where 
the starling's 
black 
wings 
flutter

singing 
the black 
starling's 
wings 
above 
my head

a power 
that 
slips out 
from under 
the black 
starling's
wings 
the most 
powerful 
bird 
in the world

there is 
no poetry 
when 
the starling 
dives into 
the abyss

in the most horrible 
hour 
of my life 
I call for 
the starling

the starling 
flutters 
its 
black 
wings 
above 
the apple tree

such 
an odd
moon 
with the black 
starling's 
fluttering 
wings

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



PRELUDE

why does my brother 
run 
through the black 
furrows 
my smallest 
brother 
searches for truth

tell 
my brother 
not to 
search 
because there is 
nothing 
in heaven 
or on earth

having just barely 
created 
this 
world 
nothing 
began to die 
and with it 
truth

and small 
girls 
with 
big 
eyes 
remained alone 
moving strangely

full 
of people and 
speckled 
falcons
one
day 
the tree 
of life 
will break

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A HUNGARIAN SOLDIER'S MONOLOGUE IN LlTHUANIA 
          BEFORE THE BATTLE OF ŽALGIRIS

My king, take my soul... 
We are your servants, 
singing with the crickets near Cracow, 
we pledge to you that we will serve, 
serve Lithuania, the whitening forests, 
will serve our heart 
from Hungary, 
we are of an ancient warrior tribe, 
those who galloped from the age of three 
on Genghis Khan's horses, king, 
take our hearts, 
do not harm our hearts, king, 
we have just returned from Ula 
where our forefathers' bones rest, king, 
do not harm the world of the Hungarians, 
do not harm our ancient families, 
having come to help Lithuania, 
you drink our wine, king, 
and see death standing there,
a second from now your servants 
will pierce my heart, king, 
do not harm yourself, do not harm Lithuania, 
do not murder the Hungarians, who help Lithuania, 
we are Hungarians, king! 
You pierced the heart, king, 
as plum trees blossomed far away, near Cracow, 
the Hungarians' Genghiskhanian heart, the heart, king, 
that rains, ah that rains above Lithuania, 
you suck out the hearts, king, 
that rain, ah that rain above Lithuania, 
our Hungarian hearts, 
our ancient Magyar hearts, king of Mongolian Lithuania!
Your knife, king! We were called 
to help Lithuania, the cricket, 
black king, 
we love you, we love your children, 
Martin's roses that blossom toward fall, 
we love Trakai 
the Jewish cemeteries, where the dead drink 
from a single well with a creaking sweep, king, 
our freezing thighs are the color of Hussars, 
we are Lithuanians, from the Norwegian Ula, king, 
you pierce the heart, you murder, you butcher, 
we want to serve, o king, 
we are dying here near Gardinas, cursed in the 1400s, 
in Lithuania of Hungarians, brothers, crickets.

– – – –

Water of the dead! Bluishly blossoming Hungarian roses 
above my drowned brother, 
above the head of my homeland, my son, o my only 
old Hungarian son in Lithuania!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



RECONSTITUTION'S PAROXYSM

– the idea of reconstituting the ancient Jotvingian 
nation – popped into my head – as I was loading 
manure for my sister, 
standing on a pile of manure – 
the longer you live, the bigger 
the pile of manure under you – 
May 2 in the afternoon – it drizzle 
under dark clouds – and suddenly I saw
17 black storks circling there – 
Prussian and Jotvingian 
birds –

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



AN ANGEL FALLING IN PALANGA

It was the voice of a falling angel, 
From purple bogs, 
Skirts of clouds, of clouds, 
Shaggy clouds.

His clothing is dark, 
The droning of blossom dust, 
Birds vehemently frightened away 
By his voice 
By his voice – from the bogs.

– – And the noise,
As if worlds were breaking,
As if space were breaking – from platinum,
Stone, from gold
His dark wings
Cover this space,
The bright sword
And pieces
Of the breaking wing – –

The angel's dream – the world, 
And the wing, and the wing, 
The bright sword – from the dream.

From milk, from steel, 
Honey and the endless 
Droning of the seas 
With running, swimming, 
Shouting ocean fish, 
Small creatures, with heaps 
Of mad insects and seeds 
Still flying on the sky.
it will no longer be.
There will no longer be anything,
Only this falling,
Explosion, breaking,
And noise – –

Above our only world.

2.

Angel of bread, 
Come with us!

Angel of stone,
Come with us!

Angel of earth,
Angel of wind!

Angel of stone, 
Angel of mollusk, 
Come with us!

Let the horse walk ahead,
Let the angel walk ahead,
Let the stone walk ahead,
Let the snake walk ahead

Listen to the voice of the horse,
Listen to the voice of the stone,
Listen to the voice of the angels
Listen to the voice of the snake!

Angel of bread,
Bread of angel,
Stone of bread,
Snake of mollusk! 
Horse of bread, 
Walks ahead 
Of the angel's horse!
– – – – –

3.

A child with a splinter in his foot 
And one sad 
Saturday 
With a bluebottle 
In its hand.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



20 CONFESSIONS

I decided that I had experienced everything. 
I had pretended to be an infant, a small child. 
A young boy and a young girl. 
A small childish god – Nothing. 
I had pretended to be a bird. 
With a bird's eyes looked at Lithuania, at its ocean craters. 
I had pretended to be priest, centaur, Strazdas, Jesus 
Christ, Lithuania's greatest poet, all people and all birds. 
Charon, demiurge, playing with shells in the Baltic. 
A mortal, caressing Dido in the ocean deeps with the whales. 
Drunken Villon or Bilhana, raping the king's underage daughter.
Cassandra, prophesying death. 
Picasso, splitting bones. 
Mad Holderlin, hungry only for silence. 
Li Po with snow-covered flags of ancient China. 
A raven, white, gathering nettles. 
All the semblances, God, that you told me to take. 
Now I want to be myself. 
Fierce, dark, unforgiving. 
Powerless, ill, noble. 
Dying and resurrecting. So I can live.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



20 ANTINOMIES

You created me and keep me. 
You did not create me and do not keep me. 
You gave me life and protect me. 
You did not give me life and do not protect me. 
You raised me and fed me. 
You did not raise me, feed me. 
You taught me and comforted me. 
You did not teach and comfort. 
You said I was handsome and honorable. 
Not handsome, not honorable. 
You told me to prolong the world. 
Did not tell me. 
You said I have a head, lips, eyes. 
I have neither head nor lips. 
You said you placed a heart in me. 
You did not place a heart in me. 
You said I have someone to love. 
I have no one to love. 
You said I was a person. 
I am not a person. 
You said I am a man. 
I am not a man. 
You said I am a woman. 
I am not a woman. 
You said I needed to have friends. 
I don't need them. 
You said I had to kill. 
I will not kill. 
You said the world is not healthy. 
It is not healthy. 
You said that I will soon die. 
I will not die.
You said you would love me. 
You will love me. 
You said you will betray me. 
You will. 
You said what you said you will say? 
I won't say.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



20 DOUBTS

There are no advisers for those who wish to create. 
All aspects of reincarnation are possible. 
The creator in spirit must be above the earth and all its 
creatures, including humanity. That is not an expression 
of scorn: 
you must always feel life's beginning and end. 
You just feel how between these two rudiments flutters life. 
Life is a form of the spirit, its phenomenon in the narrow 
field of earth. 
The field of earth gives beauty, meaning or meaninglessness,
unanticipated delight. 
It is most important to apprehend that in as small an area 
and with as small a magnitude as possible. 
That is the perspective of wider infinity. 
There is one form of contemplation – infinity. 
The paradox of creation – infinity experienced in the blink 
of an eye. 
The paradox of time and space – they vanish. 
And there is no humanity. In the contemplation of the 
universe people become unnecessary. 
They become or are made... Becoming is a great concept. 
In reality it is not a becoming but a linkage, a return and 
a gathering. 
Contact. 
All other contacts – a great profanation of life on earth. 
Nothing doubted itself and so created the earth and sky. 
Our torments come from those doubts and that fall. 
The return – our resurrection. 
Will the universe then end?.. 
We were, we are – will we not be? – is the part of the body 
necessary? 
And nonetheless: he should forgive us, forgive us for himself, 
just as we forgive. Ourselves and others us.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



REFUSE COLLECTION IN JUSTINIŠKĖS

in this brief March moment 
as  my child kicks snow 
   outside the window 
   with muddy feet 
   a crow passes by 
now I can manage 
now I am able 
   my efforts to anesthetize my body 
   were frequent and long 
   my spiritual pain hard 
but my soul really is 
together with King David's 
   the universe's sorrows 
   the sorrows of this universe 
   are my soul 
now I know 
now I can say it

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



AN ANSWER TO THE MARTIANS' INQUIRY

descendant 
of the dynasty 
of the left-handed 
Sigitas 
Geda 
after isolation 
lasting 
2000 years 
on the reservation 
of the right-handed 
was no 
longer 
persecuted 
in Lithuania 
though 
after the war 
in school 
the drawing 
teacher 
Kunickis 
would hit him 
with a board 
on his bowed 
head

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



JEROME'S LETTER IN THE POPE'S ARCHIVES

it is most difficult 
to baptize 
the Balts 
for two reasons 
because 
of their sharpened 
swords 
and 
because 
of their constantly 
erect 
members
(they 
don't distinguish 
these two things) 
and what 
else
is necessary 
to create 
a powerful 
nation 
wombs 
of one kind
or another 
will always
be found

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE CROSS, MEANING DEATH

Lithuanians 
in no way 
could ever 
accept 
Christ's 
teaching 
because 
he 
told them 
to lie 
on top of 
women 
and crucify them 
but 
Balts 
normally 
acquired 
their 
descendants 
by taking 
women 
on horseback 
on the way 
to war

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



IN THE MIDDLE OF A WHITE DAY
NIETZSCHE WOULD KISS A HORSE

an ethnic 
Pole 
with whom 
I drank 
in Torun 
anno domini 
1968 
was caught 
breaking 
into heaven 
with 
a foreign 
nation's 
history 
poets 
and princes 
his motives 
were passed over in silence

he was returned 
to 
that 
tavern 
for 99 
reincarnations

the philosopher 
said 
having
Polish 
blood 
he recognized 
his brother 
in a horse

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE LAKE I.

Fish and girl –
Two souls dear 
To me.

The full moon 
Is augured 
Best by the carp.

You must ask the fisherman 
What the waters 
Say to him.

The water was gray, 
A gray bird flew 
On the lake.

I have not forgotten that woman, 
While making love 
A mouse ran by.

The birch, whiter 
Than a woman, 
Was gnawed by a beaver on shore.

Let's begin with the ant –
How gently it crawls 
Across my shoulders.

Ants know 
More 
Than people.

They are closest 
To the damp 
Earth.

Ants know better 
Than people 
How to gnaw bones.

If the world has 
A past – there lived 
People of bone.

Blood is a very recent 
Essence 
Of our earth.

Milk must have 
Spattered 
In heaven.

People are trees, 
Beasts and fish –
They fell with the water.

Fish really are 
From heaven, 
On earth their lot is a painful one.

The carp lives in heaven, 
Even now 
It cannot distinguish what is vertical.

Light above – 
And darkness below –
Two mothers steering life.

Colors and forms –
The carp's belly and back –
The subtle play of two beginnings.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



WHITE BATS

The disk of the moon, 
In the light of night 
Flies a white bat.

The bat – my totem, 
White angel, 
Lilacs blossoming.

An old angel –
With legs of roses 
Breaks the sunflowers.

To turn into a glow worm, lord, 
Gnaw wormwood 
In the neglected garden.

In the lake water 
Splashes and splashes 
The very bluest carp.

I see my father and mother... 
Where is your granddam 
O roaches?

It is raining again, 
And the mollusks in the sand 
Barely barely move.

Gray trails of snails. 
The sand clock 
Rustles ever more quietly.

The nightingale sings! 
How wide its mouth 
Is open.
 
A red hill of clay, 
And on the snails 
A meaningless rain.

We flew through the snows 
Here
On wooden sleds.

Sea and woman –
She walks alone 
Above the withering turnips.

A bee wanders in the 
Burdock, the blue 
Fields of the sea darken.

And once again it is good 
To go across 
The sea's endless spaces.

A young trout swims, 
The moon 
Near my father's house.

The chaste mouths 
Of girls –
Could spit out roses.

The beauty still eats green 
Plums,
The dark bow of her brows furrows.

Not in this land 
Were you my sister, 
Burdock.

That plant's soul is animal, 
Which 
Plato did not guess.
 
In the land of the north 
The cabbage 
Is more beautiful than the rose.

The grasses I planted 
Grew. 
The moon x-rays barley roots.

A woman's body is fragile, 
Like a swaying reed 
Just past blossoming.

Women's eyes are everywhere, 
In the middle 
Of the bluest night.

What terrible sadness 
To tear open the buds 
Of your flowers.

Your soul will be called 
By a small child 
Picking the gladiolus.

The poet stopped 
On a hill. 
Sword, fall out of my mouth.

It is sweet and red, 
A rose 
In the heaven of my mouth.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A BLOSSOMING PLUM TREE
IN SNAIGYNAS LAKE

I lie beneath the blossoming plum trees, 
A player 
In ancient dramas.

Sleeves caked with clay, 
Potato diggers 
Wade in the mud until evening.

I loved the azure bluebottle, 
Now
Seedlings are more beautiful.

There is nothing sadder 
Than the moon 
In a neglected sauna.

A doleful tree rustles – 
A willow 
Planted in childhood.

The bird-cherries near my father's house –
Refuge for my soul 
When I die.

Don't forget in spring to visit 
The plum tree 
Deep in the forest.

I'll swim out to watch the pike 
Spawning 
In the green bullrushes.

Floating nests 
Of ducks 
Sink in the May rain.

Dead, I would sleep peacefully 
There, beneath you, 
O bullrushes.

Blossoming cherries, 
The sky –
So much sadness all around.

The flame of a match – 
I want to catch a bolt of lightning 
In my hands.

Here the cherries blossomed... 
How horrible 
The neglect of orchards.

Near the old well 
Spiders 
Spin a web between my eyes.

Crabs rustle in bogs 
Near the house 
Among the sweet-flags.

At least for one night, thistles, 
Give comfort 
To the lost dog.

It's getting dark. I pick 
Red 
Plums.

My heart is pained each year
By the skulls of animals
Whitening in the fields.

Pear tree, you take your life 
From the bones of the old man 
In the cemetery.

The blossoming thin 
Lilies beyond Gardinas 
Smelled of the past.

Stalks of sea weeds. 
Sand 
Crunching between my teeth.

As we age life becomes 
The color 
Of wild mice.

Tobacco blooms behind the barn, 
A cow lows 
In the shade.

The torpid sea shell 
Closes its mouth – 
The cold is endlessly hard.

The month is barely three days old, 
The buckwheat blooms – 
I'd like to sleep in it.

Mice 
Covered with plum blossoms 
Fell asleep in the attic.

Sunk into blue darkness 
Sleeps the Jotvingian 
Well stone.

Among the blue nettles, ah, far away, 
A boy 
Gathers nuts.
 
Children who look like me 
Play 
Beneath darkening hornbeams.

A branch of rhododendron snaps 
At night 
In the silence of the village.

The ocean light was scratched 
By the devil's scythe –
Blue.

The buckwheat ripened. 
Old women feast there 
With wooden spoons.

What could they eat 
Those people beneath 
The elm trees?

Dressed in potato blossoms 
Old insects 
Sleep.

Yellow straw of barley... 
Spirits 
Wince on high.

I fell asleep on the road, 
And my only dream –
Yellow fields of barley.

O endless journey! 
It is getting dark 
And there is no one here.

How wonderful for my spirit
In the empty space
Of heaven.     

I can't escape 
From the sight of one thing: 
Pale bones in the fields.

Clouds and antiquity, 
The sonorous cricket 
Dies.

The fattened heavy cuckoo – 
It sings 
Not in our world.

I would like to go forward 
All my life 
With a single bluebottle.

I am sorry for the grasshopper in the fallows, 
God's 
Forgotten son.

Wind will whiten my bones, 
The gray wormwood 
In my father's land.

And so I live: 
As if plowing 
The Lord's field.

I was tired riding the horse: 
The moon rises 
In the heavens.

I wanted to ask 
What you call the bullrush 
In your native tongue.

Exhausted I was barely able to dig myself a lair, 
Willows exploded, 
Having pushed away my hands.
 
Holding one branch the pear tree 
Blossoms on the old 
Porch.

The crab – pulled out 
Sees the dream of God 
Beneath the summer sky.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE LIGHT OF DISTANT SUMMERS

I

Having awaited this silver evening, 
plants wither 
in my hand.

I saw 
the flying dove 
once near the abyss 
of sand,

and now all I have 
are dismal bullrushes 
and the water 
of bitter wells,

do not fade, stars 
of evening, in the white 
dawn of fall...


II

I heard 
the bleating lamb 
the sun reddening 
in mists of fall...

having picked rustling 
ferns, I walked 
through frosting fields.

has the golden-haired 
cats-tail ripened
by the sea –
in blue light?

I searched for 
shady summer 
but hear the long 
voices of winter...


III

mosses have faded, 
my body, 
the white
snows of summer...

I am now shepherd 
of shining silver 
ferns and fire,

my feet hurt 
from the thorns of the sloe 
in the blue flame 
of fall,

opened I will remain 
a white blossom 
near the foaming 
bottom of the sea...


IV

my snow, 
the blossom of blue 
canyons shines 
in evening light,
from mists, 
from the visible sun 
this body – 
ringing voices,

my eyes see 
the mountain ash berries 
and faint away 
near the dreary deeps,

turn away if 
you hear the call 
of the light of distant summers...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A PHOTOGRAPH OF POOR QUALITY TAKEN
  FROM A HELICOPTER OF UNCERTAIN MAKE

there remained 
only one 
game 
after the war 
in the Jotvingians' 
land 
while herding 
cows 
to stick 
a bigger 
boy 
into a potato 
hole 
and walk 
in a circle
offering 
the tip 
of the third 
leg 
and singing 
lullaby 
here's a leg 
for you

they believed 
in Cockroach 
living 
beneath the ground 
and believed 
that in this way 
they were warding 
off their own deaths

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



  METAPHORICAL SUPPLEMENTS
TO PASCAL'S FEELING FOR THE WORLD

Pascal 
would 
have said 
more 
contemplating 
not in 
a single line
but 
in many 
like the ancient 
Japanese 
the meditated 
divinity
of the reed 
comes 
from the earth 
and opens 
its fan 
above 
the emanations 
of the waters 
and from 
the waters 
onto the stem 
of the reed 
crawls 
a dragon 
fly 
divinity 
echoing 
moving off 
approaching 
fishermen's 
boats
and many pauses 
in the voice

many monadic 
ensembles 
in the universe

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



FROM A FORGOTTEN CHRONICLE

Russians 
lived 
in root cellars 
then 
they 
were 
ruddy 
could 
eat 
only 
thrush 
and 
swallow 
balls

they 
never wanted 
to come 
to the surface 
fearing 
Vikings 
wolves 
and the Balts' 
Perkunas

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE POETRY OF ARAMAIC CROSSES

when the angel 
trumpets 
powerfully 
and the vault 
of darkened 
heaven 
collapses 
that terrible 
day 
o full 
of grace 
have mercy 
on perished 
man

have mercy 
on the woman's 
child 
wounded 
with the gentle 
face of 
the poor 
on the dead 
and on those 
who still 
walk 
have mercy 
on all 
on all 
people 
you'll open
the secret 
eternal
book 
among the chastity 
of the stars 
o I'm 
terrified 
how little
time 
and hope 
are left 
on this earth 
I am 
the most guilty 
have mercy 
too on this 
foolish 
imbecile
me 
and my brothers 
father 
sisters 
the red 
flame 
waters 
and time 
space 
azure 
clear
as a tear

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



PRUSSIANS ARE DERIVED FROM PRAUSTI

but that 
is not true 
because 
the tribes 
that lived there 
worshipped 
the macrocosmos 
man 
the Indian 
Purusha 
wind 
that blows 
straight 
through the universe 
from which 
children 
are begotten 
their misfortunes 
began 
when they forgot 
the holy 
Indian 
teachings 
and did not distinguish 
Purusha 
from others 
and began 
to think 
that children 
could be 
born
from farting 
when 
there 
appeared 
clumsy people 
with flying 
saucers 
from the western 
sky!
Herkus 
Mantas 
came 
from Rome

p...r...s 
still 
repeated 
1665-1667 
burning 
fragrant oils 
passing 
wind 
the redolent 
Prussian 
gods

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A DIFFERENT SPACE

I myself 
am drunk 
with one dream –
of the hyacinth.

Or the iris, 
the northern rose, 
the cabbage, 
the woman with wide hips 
who was touched 
by Nothing.
And never.

A different space, 
into which I wanted 
to toss the world. 
Dreamed spaces, 
necessary nowhere, 
games.

Heretics, 
they are necessary –
they are most powerful –
for love, for the world.

Everything else 
must perish.

Roses, fragrant 
in the devil's church 
but not mine, 
but not me, 
but not mine!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



A DEER IN THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA

in the sea 
beneath the water 
a creature 
known 
to none

I cannot distinguish 
clouds 
or birds 
living 
alone

if you could 
neither sigh 
nor moan 
knowing 
you will die

it is hard to drag 
this existence around 
and elsewhere 
our gestures 
are meaningless

the wind blows 
and waves 
whiten 
as I travel across 
the mountain of death

I had heard 
about the road 
on which we'd go
but never thought 
it would be so soon

the silent moon 
turns a circle 
and appears again 
but even our shadows 
do not return

a deer stands 
in the space of the sea 
autumnal mountains 
in its depths

in the deer's voice 
so many red 
colors 
as I called out
those mountains blushed

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



TIME TO GO

The birch remains. 
Never harm 
It.

Its blossoms 
Are bigger 
Than in childhood.

The dream remains 
And the field 
With the stone.

Against which 
You stubbed 
Your foot.

God also 
Walked through 
That field.

Everything remains, 
What remembers, sleeps, 
Dreams.

The wind remains 
And the radio's 
Static.

Everything remains, 
Only I 
Do not.

That is not 
Why 
I had come.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



CASSANDRA: SACRIFICE

Pick words from the stalk of blood – 
does the fern open in white fire, 
say which citrus trees will wither, 
and the Angel of Death already shakes its mane, 
from which side does the water of summer flow, 
why does the ocean glitter and when to ask –
o heart, the red gentians bloom! –
the lilac blossom's... your words

scatter across the ground... to white fire 
let lips murmur rock and bone, 
let children all be born again, 
into unfamiliar depths, the shadowed dream, 
during my final feast of blood 
put a crown on the head of the word, 
make a gift of the oriental cup, freshly silvered, 
fragrant as lilacs and the color of the heart...

those flowerbeds, glinting through the dust, 
like eyes for you, o pale gray queen 
of bluewhite scales, o whiter 
than cloud, not A nor I nor O,
intercede for my fire, the nest of the word, 
chew it up, carve it, may my hope 
and dream subside quickly in the depths 
of the soulless seas...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



WORLD WAR II

The gods have burrowed like rabbits 
Into heaven's red dens.

Monsters eat forests 
With teeth of steel.

People, people, 
Do not sleep –
They are coming! 
They are coming!

Hide the children and bread, 
Pick up your helmets and guns, 
Men, take care of the women, 
Women, take care of your men.

If we do not keep them away – 
No one will.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



SPRING:
FATHER'S
ORCHARD

an epileptic fit in childhood

an angel
reads
my 
open
book
page by page
	each blue
	syllable
who is it
flipping pages
in this wind
	between father's
	white
	apple trees
so what
if I am
three years old
	I am 
	already
	dead

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



VILNIUS
COAT OF
ARMS

I am 
an ancient
king
lord 
of lords
on Vilnius's
crest
a proud 
Christopher

Yonder
are moldy
castles
foaming 
snow
there is the
sleep of
Saint
Casimir's
army

A holy
stream
has carried
everything
off
only
my 
green-haired
head
remains

throughout
the night
a huge
red-colored 
illuminatae
protects
comforts
me

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



A DREAM:
AUTUMN
IN PALANGA

You
Swam
Through
Death’s
Blue
Waters
And
I
Didn’t dare
Extend
My
Hand

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



PAUSE

– as though live once again – before my eyes –
remaining for all times within a Lithuanian 
landscape –
a gesture –
hands grasping a sword at Trakai

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



TRACES
OF THE 
TOAD CULT
FOUND
ALONGSIDE
VEPRYNAS
LAKE

After the war
Lithuanians
en masse
burrowed 
into the ground
taking 
flint
tinder
twigs
(children
ate the sulfur
of matches)

then
for real
they saw
how potatoes
breed
toads
they'd say
toads
while 
unwinding
intestines

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



THE COLLECTIVE REQUEST
OF THE DEAD COUNTRY CHILDREN
OF PATERU VILLAGE

couldn't someone – become
a small sparrow from our childhood –
and bring us – sour pears –
from Petrukas' old pear tree –
by the lake?

the skulls in these graves – are so
big – but we are –
so small

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



ETERNITY'S
MUSEUM
PIECES

excavated
and
packaged
in transparent
cellophane
my
black
snow-covered
mammoth
stood 
proudly
beside
one-armed
Venice
Mona 
Lisa
Lincoln
Napoleon
and Churchill
in a New York
wax museum

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



A HINT
ON HOW 
TO READ
S. GEDA'S
POETRY

these lines
should 
be read
like a high-rise
the eye
must
grow 
accustomed
to
taking in
at once
12
or 18
floor's 
windows
a drama
on the I-st 
floor
does not
necessarily
have anything
to do with
what's
going on
upstairs
in the lift
bath
or
in bed

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



UPON A TIME,

	though not here but at some altogether other time

I would hope to start speaking in a language I never spoke before 
now, the most precious language, lagging behind the rest, the one
my heart never yet declared itself in.
	It would consist of a small number of words, having 
no more than a minor importance perhaps, but all of them lovely, 
a bluish gray, melodious.  And they would show no trace of a 
purpose, neither in pleading appeal nor in thanksgiving.
	Simply this:  pearls or minerals, rock shards, a live 
grain of earth, if there can be such... I know that, before now,
I've never come across words like these, having lost and scattered 
everything. It's all been swiped and carried off by those 
sniggering and appalling keen small henbirds.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



LETTER WITHOUT POSTAGE

And you, O people out of Lazdynų Pelėda:  tell us, how are you keeping?
	Whether you're still alive, what you survive on, what lines and
imaged you still manage to remember, how many galoshes and 
under-ripe nuts you keep in your head.
	As for myself, I don't have much.  All I need is
one thin streak in the February sky, just a bit of blue ribbon
	to wind my scant few kopeck pieces in.
I grieve for all the visions from my youth that did not come true,
I grieve for myself and for you, the diminishing small god of my dreams.

____________________________________________________________________
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:  Lazdynų Pelėda (Owl of the Hazels) was a pseudonym shared 
by two sisters writing at the turn of the last century.  Moved by their milieu 
in a steeply-declining gentility to survey the vigorous local peasantry for what 
salutary, saving virtues it could offer, they devised tales which gained wide 
appeal.  There is an almost otherworldly quaintness to their simple delineation 
of motive and character.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



THE ELEGY OF RETURNING

	– Henrikas Nagys –

So where is this place, after all, where is God's home. 
A tree grows here, here a man stops –
Where the door's ajar, there is God's home –
But I open it, and God leaves,
God goes away, and I stay here,
I close, and He opens.
He is a creator and I'm just a doer.
He is in the light and I'm in the dusk. 
He is the song and I'm just a refrain.

So where is God's home, after all? 
He is light, and I am black and white. 
He is life, and I halfway with death. 
Quickened, you'll grow into a Jew. 
Every rule will be to punish you. 
When others stand on two feet, you'll
be One-legged forever.

Your leg is a pillar.
Your leg is for the tree of death. 
Dance, man, hop high, reach 
Half a hairsbreadth inch.
The sky will be rent if you sing, 
The Messiah poised to descend. 

Hallelujah for the homeless, 
Hallelujah for him who created me, 
Hallelujah for him who set the waters free,
Hallelujah for him who holds the pillar. 

If you dance well, God will come. 
If you hop high, the pillar will rejoice. 
When you sing out of grief, the sky will open,
But always there will be those who laugh. 

What is left for a Jew, when the house is burning. 
A Jew has to go, to go confess his sins. 

When the world burns, we recognize ourselves. 
Nothing is burning in this valley.
But the fire-cleansed hearts of the Jews. 

Clean hearts make a home for us.
Deep waters welcome our return. 
We give back legs to the tree of death. 
So few recognize the tree of blood. 

Hallelujah for the homeless, 
Hallelujah for him who continues on,
Hallelujah for the one who returns through water,
Hallelujah for the one 
Who season after season stiffens.

Translated by Edgaras Platelis



TO A CHILD, CHOPPING DOWN A TREE

You'd never see such a sight in any film, my friend, 
we were walking with Mikas through soaked stubble, 
and he was over by the brook grinding away
at a scrubby, skinny little pine –
its needles were prickling
and the pine was wracked with a sort of prehistoric horror, 
Mikas barked at him:
"You gyvate, why are you ruining God's world?" 
The child began to cry,
lowering his head,
as in old Spanish paintings.
"Father told me to bring it home for the goat ..."
What need do I have of this world filled with a goat's vanquished nipples,
a pine's guts split open,
a bass from the dam,
right in front of Saint Francis's red holy museum?

- - -
Gyvatė – Grass Snake: An archaic Lithuanian term of invective. 

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



AND IN STORIES NO ONE EVER LIES

Inside my huge bespectacled head a constant
yet completely unpredictable reaction takes place.
The head looks like my grandmother's round cauldron 
that she used every day to boil potatoes 
and slop for the pigs ... The head looks like the kettle 
my father and the neighbors would pile kindling under 
to boil home brew ...
That alchemic melting-pot, the distiller, that God 
and a mangy devil took turns mixing.
The worst was when nothing would boil, when no kindling helped, 
when the alder or aspen logs only crackled and sputtered. 
Then there won't be any grog!
That other kind of soup is made of water and an axe! 
Nothing makes sense any more. Only memories – 
my dreams when I was a young Soviet soldier
near the topographical tower on the mountain Augustas colonized.

- - -
Augustas – Medieval Grand Duke of Lithuania

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



SOME DAY

not here, not now, but some other time

I'd like to speak out in a language that I've not used
until now, the most treasured language, lagging behind all the rest, 
the one that was never mute in my heart.
There wouldn't be many words, not any really 
important ones, but beautiful ones, bluish gray ones, 
melodious. And there would be no intent there, no 
requests and no thank-yous.
Simply – pearls or minerals,
flakes of rock, grains of earth, if only such a thing
exists ... I know, that until now, I've not found any such
words, I've lost them all, I've scattered them. Everything, everything 
was stolen, carried off by a flock of those giggling, homely
birds. 

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



A CONFUSING FLIER

Call Geda

Yesterday on the way home, completely sober, on the telephone pole, 
on the outside door to my apartment complex, in the stairwell, everywhere
there were fliers. About Russian this or that, French this or that,
Persian this or that,
about cats, about Afghan Greyhounds, about an apartment for sale in our complex, 
about anything that a person could possibly buy ... And I,
I too really wanted to put up a flier - for something long desired, sought after, 
bursting out of me and within me, but how would I advertise it?
I need some superfluous words – maybe one of you has a few constructions
you no longer need?
Only they need to be terribly attractive (and unattractive). 
I need words, ancient words, primal words,
contemporary words and old words, only they must be 
in good condition, not used up, not tormented,
they should still be in good working condition, instruments, dreadful and strong, funny.
They have to sound different, like a cat and a greyhound and an apartment all at once –
They should be able to fly through the air, howling, squeaking, making music, 
be able to scatter and run, they should be flexible. I'd buy nouns
and participles, and gerunds as well – 
verbs – they're easier – it's not true
that I don't use verbs! I'd pay,
what would I pay with? – I can barely say it –
I'd pay with my blood ... I would also consider 
words in Polish!
                  I know, I know, that type of a flier
could not exist ... (it must have been some kind of interrupted inflection
from the moon).

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



THE SON-OF-A-BITCH AND THE CRAZY LADY

They went out for a walk. Son-of-a-Bitch set down
a bottle of beer on the grass; Crazy Lady pulled out some sausage. 
Son-of-a-Bitch sneezed and took a swig. 
Crazy Lady:
               "Lord, what did they do to you!" 
Son-of-a-Bitch:
               "Eat what's set down for you." 
Crazy Lady:
               "And will they kill us?" 
Son-of-a-Bitch:
               "I don't know."
Crazy Lady:
               "All the same, we're alive." 
Son-of-a-Bitch:
               "That's right."
Crazy Lady:
               "Do you still want to be independent?" 
Son-of-a-Bitch:
               "Yes."
Crazy Lady:
               "Then let's take a nap."
When they opened their eyes the violets behind them were blooming. 
It's important to feel a great silence; beauty is not a prerequisite.
How have you spun the thread of your own life? 

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



50 YEARS OF ARROGANCE

with Rilke, Camus, Derrida ...

fifty foolish,
lost, partied away,
scholarly, meditative, quick-witted
and dull-witted years – 
almost my entire life, 
only so that
I could return to the meadow
near the lake where four 
stolen tomatoes glisten.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



I STILL HAD A LITTLE BIT OF THE MOON

For Marta

My sun grows dark, it sets behind
the ant hills, the cats do not remember the barley, oh and it was 
so, so yellow!
I was born ninety years ago,
I have a passport with a tsarist eagle, a photograph, and a fingerprint 
on yellowed paper, but – whether it is day or night, no one can tell. 
That is why my life is – 
half night...
I heard how the birds sang, but you hear – 
how they fly... It's hard to say which one of us 
is happier.
Below my window all that is leafy is entangled with the universe – 
into one big book with covers of green burrs. 
Mother would thumb through it, your grandmother Victoria, 
much younger than the both of us, as the pet 
rabbit squatted on the windowsill. And I'd long, oh 
how I would long, coming home through the snow, to draw 
a line along the moon, so that everyone who'd left, would come back.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



ONE LAST MEMORY FROM MY CHILDHOOD HOME

oh and windy days
silvery-blue
larks
darted about –

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



TWILIGHT

An autumnal dull daffodil 
still
nods its bloom.

Soon I'll die,
let me have a good look 
at a ripening tomato.

What does a man think 
when awakened 
at daybreak?

His woman is gone, 
and the world
is so alien and empty.

In the moolight the stream 
keeps on floating 
the slumbering fish.

Deeper and deeper I sink 
into visions 
of twilight.

Life is short,
yet the dream
becomes longer and longer.

Nothing exists in the world 
except snow,
only snow.

Most of poetry lies
in the dream
of a slumbering child.

Here comes running 
the best friend of dusk, 
an old field-mouse.

The sunflower can 
tell us more 
about light.

The sun all the time 
causes earth 
to give birth.

The sun is earth's 
vigorous 
husband.

Something like this 
would occur
in our own little cottage.

Beetles copy
the roads
of the bright constellations.

All the flowers
are stars
woken up out of earth.

The old calami swish 
like old god's 
crooked swords.

This much I saw
in myself,
in the village at twilight.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



* * *

Is it true, or a ruse,
That buses show as dots
Yellow as ladybirds, crossing
Forests in Lithuania's South?

The Caucasus under my feet
Is one red-tinged wave:
If it should suddenly fade,
I'd cry like a child.

It's an odd cluster up North
Our small countries make.
With Polish and German taught
To fieldstones and trees,
The only ones to guard
Us and our homes
Were tiny carved gods.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Russia's under the plow. Red clay
Shines from far away.
Russia's all russet red,
Each Orthodox dome and grassbed.

Russia's prophets gaze
On heaven through expanded eyes.
Russia's people and birches have
Only the shelter of open skies.

No one knows what days
Or suns are yet to dawn.
Forests rust, now it's autumn,
The age we're in may be iron.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



MINOTAUR BALL

Eight headless men out having a ball
but where have their heads gone
all eight are having a ball
why are their heads not on

	Eight count them only eight of them
	the headless eight all eight
	or eighty-eight of them
	all shades of earth and sky

What about the heads though
what are their whereabouts

	The heads are out there walking
	where the god turned into wind
	then ice hell only knows what else
	he's going to show us next

That's where their heads walk
stalking heads other than theirs
off where the life runs out on
all earth-and-sky shades

	Eight headless men out having a ball
	the headless eight all eight of them
	only these eight and each one of them

out after our heads as well

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



THE NEW ARCHIPELAGOS

Save the grass the ruffed grouse heads for
red as this world is
with blue from the breakup of black island chains
the island chains chaining change

Save the child dying outside your window
red as this world is
with blue from the breakup of black island chains
the island chains chaining change

Save the woman just as tomato row
red as this world is
with blue from the breakup of black island chains
the island chains chaining change

Save the white moth fluttering blind
red as this world is
with blue from the breakup of black island chains
the island chains chaining change

Save the dog that wears its fleece of snow raw burning
red as this world is
with blue from the breakup of black island chains
the island chains chaining chance

Save the clock for what time has to tell us
red as this world is
with blue from the breakup of black island chains
the island chains chaining change

Save the sea from turning blue so says
this world red as it is
with blue from the breakup of black island chains
the island chains chaining change

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



HÖLDERLIN'S SUMMER

The bright word offering I bring you
May have escaped notice, but I spent a good while
Rubbing the gem of my own heart. I grew
Up where rowans flower, flexing
Branch and blossom every which way. I stood
Under black poplar, staring out
Where bones blacken to pearl blue
And the sun gives a ghastly sheen to the sea.
Once night dawns, you, my neighbor in heartache,
Will be after fruit of a kind from the topmost reaches,
Among stars arching past the Lord's eyelids
Creatures of highway and field no longer construe.

I bring you the bright word offering.
White hairs, or clouds streaking
Clear skies, yet when the wind howls in,
Heart, who will survive to a dim evening?
Minerals may, with the copper worn thin
On the mound of my lips from a cup
Of bright olive, the one quiet glint
Last summer comes to mutter.
Just as the mystery of gold carp
In bygone ages toured Tibetan ranges, so gradually
I bring you bread and water and wine.

I bring you the bright word offering
And stay a long spell, reaching my hands out,
Where I see the groundfrost yield
White lilies, then have them turn
Grey to a glow of seagrown gladiolas,
A nasturtium grail, and my own heart fired up,
Senseless till now to the shade and gloom of this day,
Holds out hope of pearl and glinting coral
To dust the earth from my heart, even past
Those clearly never forget the color any sky has,
To sing eternal stillness, nothing else.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



FRANCISCAN BY THE LITTLE WOOLY

Toward spring, a clear fresh sheaf
shows yellow transforming to green;
from there, the green takes over everywhere.

Red will hold out for as long as it can,
finally jumping right in
to bend all loose ends to one end.

Such is the world: blood so blind
in summing up, it leaves me terrified;
churches enmeshing in vines,
while the heart lacks props.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



UPON A TIME,

	though not here but at some altogether other time
I would hope to start speaking in a language I never spoke before
now, the most precious language, lagging behind the rest, the one
my heart never yet declared itself in.
	It would consist of a small number of words, having
no more than a minor importance perhaps, but all of them lovely,
a bluish grey, melodious. And they would show no trace of a
purpose, neither in pleading appeal nor in thanksgiving.
	Simply this: pearls or minerals, rock shards, a live
grain of earth, if there can be such... I know that, before now,
I've never come across words like these, having lost and scattered
everything. It's all been swiped and carried off by those
sniggering and appalling keen small henbirds.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Sigitas Geda was born in Pateriai, a small village near the southwestern Lithuanian town of Lazdijai. He studied Lithuanian philology and literature at the University of Vilnius, from which he graduated in 1966, and has since devoted himself to writing poetry and contributing reviews and essays to literary journals. He is the author of some twenty books, including collections of poetry, essays, and literature for children. The books have enjoyed great popularity among the reading public, and Geda is widely regarded as artistically perhaps the most interesting and innovative Lithuanian poet. His collections of poetry are marked by a contemplation of the wholeness of the world, expressed in elements of mythology, and lyrical visions which reject logical sequence. Geda's work is experimental and innovative; his voice and style change enviably and unpredictably from book to book. Geda's poetry draws its strength from his childhood in the village of Pateriai, from Lithuanian history, folklore and folk wisdom, merging a pantheistic voice with a post-modernist aesthetic. Geda is one of Lithuania's leading intellectuals. Most recently he has compiled and edited the first complete selection of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry in Lithuanian translation, and has translated the book of Psalms. During the period of Lithuanian national rebirth Geda was actively involved with the Lithuanian reform movement "Sajudis". Today his critical voice still carries authority, however his essays on contemporary Lithuanian literature, numerous translations, and most recent collections of poetry bear witness to the fact that Geda is certainly one of the most important, and respected, literary talents in Lithuania today.