COURTYARD IN ANTAKALNIS

To enter is the same
as to dive into a dream
or waken.  Objects

broken free of form, faded
balconies, doors, grass
not yet sprouted.  Everything

shrunken;  at the same time
expanded.  One way or the other
I don't belong.  The circle

has turned around;  the branch
I used, late for school,
to pull myself over the fence

five meters high;  the tree
where we'd sit playing cards,
blooms in paradise now.  Hidden

for eternity from God, playing
Chech Fool are my friends – suicides,
whose faces are worn now
by children still playing war.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



THE DOG I NAMED SONNET

Ugly black dog named Sonnet,
each day at three you scraggle
over very literally to this spot.
It is Autumn, but just take one step –

don't rush, stay – every day at three
the dog comes and three jays fly over
through the sun's rays, beautiful as a visitor
from the other orchard. Over the blank 

landscape the lightened soul kneels at the thrown;
petting the old dog, Anubis, who loves everyone
just the same, comes, sniffs her over.

And suddenly it is brighter, even October ends;
the king dies frozen into himself,
and the sun's rays radiate away
from the lame dog.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



REFLECTION

tomorrow he is everything, today – what?
just a feeling, footprints, yesterday 
he smiled at his reflection, lifting away
a branch slowly to see the path.

between billowing weeds bees
buzz and hum;  the river, panting
before the bridge.  If I stared
into the current, I'd waken –

startled eyes – I am more 
than thirty years old – really
just a boy wading into water

playing with reflections near the brook –
here I am, here I am not – gracefully
I will learn to go, return quietly.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



THE SPRINGTIME WIND

Spirit of bread, may your name be pronounced:
an ancestor thousands of years ago 
ploughing the field and still nameless.
May the elk that has lost its antlers appear, 
also the wolf with its head lowered shyly.
Let's partake of the sense of forgotten word, the magic 
meaning death and a new resurrection. 
Spirit of bread, spirit of fire, 
spirit of water and land. The air's trembling 
over the fresh springtime valleys, and this is 
the revelation of our conspiracy: everything's rising
like shoots from a grain and keep flooding, repeating itself, 
year after year singing
the ancestor sows up the field. Then let's try 
once again. Once again and again.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



ROCK INTO ROCK

language alone can save me now
in words of ice to scorch the voice
freeze streams of feeling into flint
and lock itself in like fire

this pregnant time I'll seal inside myself
goodbye to eyes and body nevermore
sustain and preserve all that I'd kept suppressed
turn pain into veins of stone

I'll give up responding to my body's echo
and hand memory's garment over to words
with flames in deep – in stone – cold at the surface
that glaciers have sloughed off in shifting

language alone will save: inside me
silence will chill to ice age moraines
a knowledge secure as insanity
rock striking fires of gleaming dusk into rock

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



A SIBILANT STREAM

ever deeper into thickets even dead gods avoid stepping into
our craft gets carried away on a sibilant stream with gentle
shadows playing hide-and-seek amid the evening cattails
while nymphs sing a greeting that leaves us stupefied

fresh from grazing unicorn herds and splashing the stream
pan toots his reedpipe in reply to birds cooing
birds dive through air water has fish quietly shimmering
and girls we loved bind sunlight into a wreath for us

most likely we're dreaming and the one watching our exploit
laughs quietly in the leaves smiles out from under the lilies
ripples the surface and entices us to acknowledge him
in dreams we're no longer seeking any way to escape from

for there is nothing here out of dying words we've constructed
this place never existed and this raft sliding across a dream
a process that overwhelmed us the legacy of ancient gods
and finally even the one watching this happy escapade

so let us rerun the words a sibilant stream carries us off
our time goes by there is no strength to awaken
those lulled in a trance of streaming shades and departed nymphs
on transient songs to float a decomposing craft

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Aidas Marčėnas is a virtuoso of form, predominantly the sonnet form. Because of his measured lyric voice he is popularly considered a Lithuanian Rilke. Most of his material is drawn from everyday life in the city of Vilnius; from his childhood in Antakalnis, a suburb of Vilnius. He is the author of four collections of poetry, and the recipient of the Poetry of Spring prize. Aidas Marčėnas studying acting at the Vilnius Music Academy.