I  LOVE

– I love you with the willow
(do you remember how the wind
broke its branch last year?), I love
with the cracked rock,
the sky – changing, living,
the river – like life itself, yes,
I love you with the black hands of sorrow,
dust, rain, the gentleness
of the lark's nest (just yesterday
you touched the down
it was lined with and said
that you were cleansing your soul),
o, I love you with children's toys,
a bird's bloodied feather
sadly falling on my head,
with dreams, that all is well again,
with the doorsill across which you depart,
I love
with agonies and shadows – o, yes,
I have not yet told you,
I love you with darkness and death,
oblivion and light –
with the grass on the sunken grave –
I love –

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



TWO POEMS

1.

I picked up the cuckoo's mottled feather –
the birch grove cuckooed.

I picked up the skylark's grey feather –
the tillage sang.

And when I picked up the cross of hardships –
Lithuania sighed.


2.

tear in God's eye
Lithuania what are you doing

I ask nothing of you
just cry out as you still

oriole cry in the oak
the rock at the end of the road.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



HIGHWAY OF WAR

(perhaps even I'm
not too small for a bullet
if I call out to the rifle barrel:
friend! friend!)

  ...down that road,
they say, half of Europe passed,
barked over by all the village dogs,
having carried off, as if a knife
  between the shoulders, the cry: "Ah Christ"...

Ax blades stare at the road.
The cross, too, stares at the road.
Run, child, to the grass, the grass, 
to look for the blades of truth.

The sun's rays
like fire on me
through the Western windows...

(they've already cut
that grass, I pierced my foot
with a hard dry stalk)
  – Ah Christ!
the blood cries out in my voice.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



WINDOW

What can I tell
     air or water
about existence?
What do I know
     about the hungry howling wolf
     about the couchgrass root
     or the bees' buzzing?

What can I say
     about melancholy eyes,
     a sigh,
     a smile,
     silence?

What do I know
about the bird, which now rises,
     about its wing,
     about its feather,
     about that which carries it,
     that lifts it –
what do I know?

I am depressed
by the cosmos' inhuman volume:
     through me,
     as if through a window,
     it concentrates on itself.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



FATHER'S WINTER

The birds have all left
my father's tall trees.
Now only frozen stars
cling to the black branches.

Old farm tools stand stagnant:
plows, scythes, hands and hoes.
It seems there is nowhere to go,
nothing to make us wonder.

The wonders of Father's life
have passed unnoted and expected –
who will marvel at the water or grass,
or write down the spring or winter?

If you listen, at night
you can hear the deep and heavy sighs
of the senile, faithful Guernsey
passing up from the cattle-shed.

All thoughts, like snow, blend to one.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



GREEN CRAB

Green waves roll over Lithuania –
A green elemental hurricane.
Green grass bounces like rain.
Green cows feed on that grass.

Green fish, lakes and castles,
Green moss grows on the towers.
Green milk pours through strainers.
Green cloth through the green wind.

At night green serpents flash.
Thunder is muted by distance.
Trees rock like feelings.
And rain is green and gold.

Summer is born from a green rumor.
Nights withdraw into day's shade.
Children loudly fish in streams
For the Zodiac's sixth sign – the green crab.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



SELF-ANALYSIS

I've drunk from many, many springs,
and yet I'm struck with the suspicion:
is it still worthwhile – of all things –
to equate water and cognition?

Look what unearthly grandeur shines
in earth, in grass, in any man:
each is complete within himself
and none need envy anyone.

Since each is big – just like a drop –
and all akin to the sun's ball,
if only man remains himself,
he never, never will be small.

Our thoughts like birds are fond of height;
tamed, down onto our hands they whizz.
Why do you teach your thought to crawl?
Who is responsible for thought?
Who is?

O puzzling mazes of our age
into town streets transformed!
Look –
someone's looking for himself,
though it's already dawned!

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



SUCH A NIGHT

Tonight I'll let my heart out for a stroll.
Myself, I won't go anywhere at all.
It's such a night that one can lose one's head.
My heart is full, I can't say how,
and never was so light as now.
All sounds far out into the distance spread.
It's such a night that one can lose one's head.

Tonight I'll let my heart out for a stroll.
Myself, I won't go anywhere at all.
I only ask you not trample on it.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



* * *

The snow now lies there right up to the gate.
Icicles dangle on the tile-roof's brink.
My father cuts a hole through river-ice
To give the brindled cow and sheep a drink.

And with as much care as you give your health
he pitches them a whisp of fragrant hay,
and Mother, going down upon her knees
beside a bucket, cheerful, milks away.

I have to be there, yes, I have to stroke
the rugged, heaving sides of last year's calf.
I have to see them sparingly share life
like they would cut a loaf of bread in half.

From Father's table, too, I have to taste
some soft brown bread – just one delicious piece.
Like a believer, who by hands most chaste
Must have his sins absolved and find new peace.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



THE START OF AN EPIC

A word arose unexpectedly
and stuck in my throat like a tear.
Let us mourn for ourselves, let us mourn.

A stone. 
On the stone burns fire.
And over the fire
a hawk and a dove.
Eternal fire.
Eternal hawk and dove.
Uneternal alone in stone
which has been replaced by iron and brass.

Lakes had no names as yet.
All rivers were still just danubes.
But children played with grass snakes
and, just as today, smelled of milk.

Men burned out forest cuttings with fire.
In the evenings they pondered heavily
on everything seen during daytime,
looking for cause and purpose.

This summer they dug up a burial mound
and all that they found
they buried a second time in a museum.
When no one was looking
I, according to ancient tradition,
mourned them –
a second time.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



AN OLD ABC

so cribs are rocked.
So dough is kneaded.
So wood is hacked
When a trough is needed.

So wheat is threshed.
So flour is milled.
So charcoal's burned,
So hogs are killed.

So people cry.
So they grin in scorn.
So they weave cloth bands.
So bands are worn.

So they make ploughs.
So they make swords.
So, armour-clad,
They go to wars.

So back from war
Men come or don't.
So by a grave
An aspen groans.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



BROTHER

Better let's be silent a bit.
Maybe we both then will see
horses drink by a well
then raise their heads, letting water drip from their lips.
All across the slope
stretch their big shadows.
The sun is setting.

A stork on the roof
like the day just passed
stands on the look-out.
The gates are open wide
for all to come back home.

Footsteps – like raindrops –
sink deep into the earth
and through invisible veins
run down into the well.
Draw me a bucket of water.
Right from the bucket I'll drink.
The day was a hard one.

That poplartree in the darkness,
doesn't it look like a threatening finger?
But don't be afraid:
we only fancy
that we are eternal.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



SILENCE

Let me be silent too.
It is good to walk with silent rivers.

Something grows in the silence.
Maybe, thoughts?
Maybe, fishes?
Both words and fishes are voiceless.

During the night the grass pushes up
like a dense green cloud
and silently says everything.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



EVENING: ATOM-BOMB FRIGHT

I do not know precisely 
how much trotyl 
per head 
is kept for us today in store, 
but I do know precisely: 
it is sufficient 
per head 
for all of us 
and many millions more.

Alone at home. 
I'm waiting. 
Smoking. 
Dusk. 
It's getting late. 
High time to put the light on. 
I have to move across the room, 
I must 
go to the door 
and press a round black button.

Ridiculous! 
I'm scared 
it might explode... 
Ridiculous, isn't it,
to think it might explode? 
And yet I'll wait. 
They both are soon due home –  
my daughter and my wife. 
And then 
with matriarchy here restored 
I shall be certain 
of at least a few millenia more 
of life.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



NIGHT

Peacefully, noiselessly 
cities subside into night 
and like fishes with scale-backs 
they cover themselves 
with tiled roofs. 
Do we too 
sink like cities at dusk 
in this ocean of pitch-black night 
to resurface tomorrow?

A dream then shall follow 
like new and mysterious shores 
where time's measure 
is still undiscovered or lost. 
But how odd: 
even dreaming, we fail to perceive 
that escaping from time like this 
we draw close to eternity.

At this moment though 
       somewhere above or below us 
cities are growing 
and clocks still remember 
the sequence of hours.
Most likely tomorrow
from time or from darkness
both we and the cities will surface
washed up on the tide of existence.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



THE FROZEN SEA

It's cold and lifeless –  
Like a bandaged face 
All wrapped in blinding white.

No eyes –  
No thoughts to be seen.

No lips –  
No moans to be heard.

No face –  
Just a snow-white bandage.

The restless seagulls 
Shriek upon the shore: 
The sea is dead and gone, 
The sea's no more.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



* * *

I fear for forests and for birds, 
I'm anxious for the lakes and rivers, 
I'm worrying about that birch-tree 
which shortly you intend to fell.

I'm also anxious for that word 
which is forsaken and forgotten, 
which in the fields like a stray boulder 
is lying overgrown with weeds.

I fear for that old song now silent, 
and for the bedspread time has tattered, 
and for the wooden bat now rotting, 
I fear for the old-fashioned flail:

How will they all survive without us? 
What shall they do without us now?

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



LIKE LETTERS

Your slumbering eyes 
are two letters sealed up by the night. 
Though you're lost in a dream 
faraway, 
you continue to write.

I just look and don't stir 
lest I give you a fright. 
Lest your letters I blur 
I must wait all the night.

For the letters I prize –  
for the gleam of your eyes.

You will wake with a smile in the morning 
and open once more 
your two letters to me. 
I shall read them with yearning: 
"Fear not 
In the dreams that I see 
you are always with me."

Your slumbering eyes 
are two letters sealed up by the night.
Though you're lost in a dream 
faraway, 
you continue to write.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


 
UNITY OF GRASS AND STONE

When my old father 
comes to visit me 
I try to measure 
always with his eye 
the town, the world, 
myself 
and things.

There's nothing inessential 
now about his face –  
a ripe gold ear of wheat 
where all 
is in its proper place, 
where all is clear 
and good 
with simple grace.

Today he came from town 
and said: 
"No unity of grass I found... 
but unity of stone instead."

And later 
with a sigh to me confided: 
"So cleverly
did we divide the world
that now
we do not know
how to unite it."

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


 
POTATO-PICKING

The sombre stubblefields lie bleak and bare.
Across potato plots deep footprints run.
The days are filled with hidden growth and care.
All hands are soiled with earth, and knees are numb.

Now Lithuania bends over potatoes.
Over her daily and eternal food.
Some women rise and for a moment stately 
Embrace a round sack in a merry mood.

Humble potato, you are always blessed,
With sturdy growth you keep us fit and able, 
You struggle staunchly for our whole existence, 
Both cradle you help save and supper table!

Again you come as hot as inspiration,
Like lumps of earth that melt between the lips.

Through deeping dusk a cart creaks, fully laden. 
Again wives from potatoes peel thin strips.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis

 

AUGUST

Short and deep are the nights 
passing dreamlessly by, 
when invisible ties 
bind up people and rye

Up above a log shed
the full moon starts to climb 
like a round loaf of bread 
or a symbol of time,

when we simply discover 
the prompting which brings 
very close to each other 
both people and things.

Earth is ripe for bestowing
what it happens to own
and man's fortune comes 
flowing like the magic milk foam.

Hope and fortitude bud
when this time comes anew.
The scythe shines not with blood
But with silvery dew.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


 
* * *

I have the feeling now that not your hands 
but flowers touch me. 
What a peal of spring dawns when you are beside me!

The spirit dons the gentleness of meadows, 
the body makes no effort to resist it. 
And wholly pure are water, bread and fire.

Let us speak softly or lapse into silence
and just with glances grow an upright tree 
with rustling leaves of tender love and truth.

The birds fly home, and I now also fly 
across the azure of your loving eyes 
repeating vaguely only these few words:

The gods we sought to please let us forget. 
The offerings we made let us remember.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis

 

CONFESSION

What am I without grass, the trees and birds, 
without another man, without a glance 
which always bids me welcome and farewell?

Dear flower, your gentle bloom unfolds in me. 
I know, well I do know how I must guard it 
and how I must pass on this feeble torch.

The day when someone robbed a blackbird's nest 
I couldn't find the heart to come back home – 
a sadness filled the whole of heaven, people.

I saw eyes flickering like those of beasts –
so terribly ferocious, hungry, scared –
and nobody could save them from themselves.

I'm baptized not with water, but with love, 
so here am I to love. I know for certain 
that in this world we have no other choice.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


 
PUNISHMENT

I loved. Oh, yes,
I do affirm: I loved. 
But not as much
as I myself was loved
by heavens and by earth, 
by people and by birds.

I know I'm guilty
of not upraising
and not multiplying love: 
why didn't my hand 
embrace a tear and blood, 
why did my mouth
keep silent gazing at the feast of lies, 
my eyes, why did they shyly 
turn away from madness?

We suffocate
with what is left unsaid 
and we break down
with what is left undone: 
it's our punishment.

                     And here's
our real executioner – 
our body:
unyielding, ignorant and blind,
ready to take the only path 
and follow one direction – 
where Everything ends up 
and Nothing may begin.

I must be guilty
of not upraising
and not multiplying love. 
I must be guilty, 
if behind my body – 
behind my executioner – 
I walk.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



* * *

Those looming tall beyond
the window could be trees. Or ogres.
And the bedtime story reaches
a sudden, sad early demise

with blood foaming in,
filled with a treacherous din.
Let there be someone to watch
over cradle and grave.

Let someone stretch, chest out,
across the gaping crematory jaws.
Where a bird touches earth,
scatter grain for it to eat:

for it might be a homeless heart,
its body misplaced or lost.
One urge to try extending grows:
for the tale to have a happy close.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



ACROSS THE NEMUNAS

Dogs bark from across the Nemunas,
where the sun goes down,
and people keep creaking the wells
like chairs in a movie-hall.

And they walk in the evening stillness,
so somber, withdrawn, taciturn,
as if on a bridge they were crossing
back here from the beyond.

Happy are those who've heard
an eloquent silence like ours
and accepted the brief time it has,
as all-encompassing, tall and vast.

Dogs bark from across the Nemunas,
when the sun goes down,
and people keep creaking the wells
like chairs in a movie-hall,

while singing the anthem of their fate
as an interminable long span,
or brief revelation, one
all-encompassing evening of calm.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Justinas Marcinkevičius, born in a tiny Lithuanian village Važatkiemis, having grown up during the post-war period, evokes in his poetry a romanticized version of childhood spent in the Lithuanian countryside, of first love, of man's relationship with nature. He graduated from the department of history and philology at Vilnius University in 1954 and served for a number of years as vice-chairman of the board of the official Union of Lithuanian Writers. Since the emergence of Marcinkevičius' first book I Plead for a Word in 1955, he has published fourteen collections of poetry, three historical plays, two collections of essays, a novella and translations into Lithuanian of the work of Mickiewicz, Pushkin, Jesenin, Lermontov, and the Kalevala. In Marcinkevičius' poetry specific and solid peasant thinking is combined with a mind seeking to draw broad general conclusions, and the tradition of Lithuanian poetry singing the earth's praises with contemporary modes of poetic thought. As a poet, he has sought to grasp the essence of national experience and give it fresh artistic expression. In his lyrical verse Marcinkevičius strives to comprehend the real meaning of what is going on inside man and society and moves the reader with his ardent lyrical confessions.