LAMENTING LADYBUG, A SUMMER DREAM

In the morning,
as the sun was rising
Ladybug died.

They carried her held up high
in a glass drop.

Along the way, reapers
stood barefoot, hats in hand.
They scythes flashed.

In front twelve horsemen rode. 
Their horses walked with lowered heads
as if in an etching.
And you couldn't see where the road ended.

Beside the hearse
walked a lame girl –
she was ladybug's sister.

Twelve wailers,
those twelve
black veiled nights
followed wailing:

	"Sun, sun,
	grow reeds
	to raise Ladybug."

The sun sharpened the scythes –
the scythes cut the reeds –
twelve horsemen rode –
dew fell –

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



SEVERIUTE'S  LAMENT

I am Severiutė from Užpaliai, where the railroad tracks turn
					   south,
where I walked the tracks barefoot,
like a pregnant washerwoman ordered away from home...
As if I were nobody –
at the heavily laden table there was no room for me;
behind my back, when I didn't hear
you talked,
and talked,
and talked...

I wasn't a sister to you, I just wove the linen;
alone I raised my mute third brother.
I cried for my dead father in his wooden bed and I don't
blame you.
As if over knives –
I walked the frozen earth,
I waded through the village mud...

I lived far from Užpaliai –
miles away.
At night I spoke with the grass
about a small tow-headed child
The little hunchback
who died the year before last
played the accordion for me.

He said:
he would clothe me in beer froth,
put my feet in scythe-like shoes...

My dear God,
I didn't even see that we'd grown old –
like a big lit-up city
the train passed through tonight...
But I –
I'm just Severiutė, but I –
cry like a little shepherdess –
how quietly on the unfinished linen cries
the hunchbacked weaveress.

All these years have passed,
and it's too late to comfort me:
you needed a shepherdess,
a lover, a barefooted comfort.
What have you done to me, –
on wheels,
rich,
in shoes –
You see, I'm just Severiutė,
I am the sister of the third mute brother.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



LONELY  WOMAN'S  SONG

What does the lover say?

What do the trees and the earth answer?
And on whom overnight does
the morning dew fall?

What does a word say to a word?
Who comes out of the river's white mist
and in the morning silently
stops at the window?

What do the stars and the bullets say,
what does death say
when it leans over the lover
in a foreign land?

Does a word hear a word,
when the stars fall soundlessly,
when far away the moon
swims over mountains of clouds?

Don't rustle, books, trees,
don't interfere with the lovers –
so quiet, they don't fall asleep,
like two stars in the heavens.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

I'm desperately longing for love
As a tree, no doubt, longs for the spring
Or feverish lips
For water.

All lovers
Tonight
Are repeating the same sweet words...
I too stroll along with my manhood
Unused as I am to unfaithfulness.

The verdure of trees like fountains
Is spouting upon the pavement.
The birches and limes stand clinging
Locked in each other's embraces.

Behold on the path two figures
Clasp gently hand in hand...
From the glowing eyes of the strangers
I steal a familiar joy.

He tenderly fondles her hair
And whispers
Some meaningless
Words...
Her moist lips part,
Impatiently awaiting a kiss.

I'm desperately longing for love...

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



CHILDREN ARE LIKE GRASS

Children are like grass. I can pretend
That I'm a bus
Or, say, a bear.

They all climb on me at once
As though they were climbing a giraffe's long neck.

And the children beg, beg
Me to be a soldier.

It's not hard for me –
Really: I know how to shoot
And dig trenches.

They point their wooden guns at me
And take me prisoner,
Pushing me against a wall to be shot.

And I, pretending to be dead, fall.

I don't find it hard to pretend –
I've seen how people collapsed near walls
Holding their sides,
Fruitlessly gasping for air,
Searching for a hand.

And I, pretending to be dead, fall.

The little soldiers quieted.
They threw down their guns
And ran away
Frightened.

I slowly arose and called to them:
– Wait!
I called to them:
– Wait, I'm a bear.
Look, I'm a bear.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE MURDERED MUTE, MONIKA

At night someone filled
the lettered clay jug with milk,
brushed off the dew in the yard.

At night steps sounded,
baby swallows
sadly chirped.

During the dream Monika
stood on the dirt floor near the bed,
hands prickled with sleep,
body bleached white by the moon.

The streams flowed dark:
perhaps she sang,
perhaps she softly wept.

And opening my eyes – the scream
echoed as it fled.
Something
rattled and fell to the ground.

As if at a stranger,
but seeing no one,
the dog began to bark.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



BALLAD ABOUT FIVE PRISONERS

Of the five one would die.
The minute was long and heavy.
The guard twirled his gun and taunted: "Come!
Come!"
The five were quiet.

It was morning. It smelled of oatmeal and milk.
An old soldier sat near the gravepit.
He was a farmer and had seen horses wading in the cloverfields.
And he knew, if he died, the horses would wade too far
And never return.

The second clearly heard his mother winding the clock.
And saw her barefooted on the clay floor.
He wanted to return once more to the smoky house
That smelled of mice and old age.

The third knew –
		a soldiers dies like
Trees, like women, grass.
The way clouds die, children's fingers.
To die – to quietly turn to grass and be silent.

The fourth was a coward and he saw
That there would be no gravestone or grave here.
And he saw how an old farmer years later
Would plow up an empty skull.

The fifth awoke – the youngest. He took off his boots.
He distributed his tobacco and wool clothing.
				He gave away a photograph.
There, a young girl naively
			    smiled
For the one going to die for his friends.

Four couldn't bear it, they stood up and waited for that night
Where there is no light, no darkness,
			    and no smell of oatmeal and milk.
Only the heavy ground.

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

After it was over
The guard
Quietly holstered his hot gun.
And horses didn't come back from the cloverfields.
The five were quiet.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



* * *

If I'm a tree, some day to be chopped down,
Don't make a stable out of me,
Don't saw me into firewood.

Make me into a bridge across a river,
A door or doorstep
Over which men greet each other.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



* * *

Who was that girl 
who, 
bending over me,
looked deep
into my life?
And on my face
fell evening's fragrant hair.

Who was that girl,
a flower that grew up in the shade?
She it was, who
with flowers hand-in-hand
stood listening –
I could even hear her listen.
So long ago it was –
so long
that I already don't remember when.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



* * *

Child, in the heart of a bird
there are tiny little people.

Far off, in the heart of a singing bird
those people live like us.

They sail over tiny oceans,
watch the reflection of fading earth
deep in the water.

Sometimes they cry,
but their sobs are so quiet
that we can't even hear them.

And sometimes they fly from the bird
in their silver airplanes
to us.
But not all of them then fly back
into the singing bird.

Child,
those people are all too tiny:
if they became just a wee bit tinier
they would no longer exist at all.

Most likely, though, child,
they do not exist,
those people,
in the heart of the singing bird.

Most likely, they
are merely ourselves
which were seen – just so –
by a bird flying past.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



* * *

In the morning awakens
an old, old man
and finds at the doorstep
a bundle of things to be done.

In the bundle are:
the tending of fire,
the pronouncement of words,
the tinkle of pails,
the old man's sigh.

He unties the bundle
and over the yard go the things to be done;
the creak of the door,
the whispering of straw,
the sparkling of windows,
the sighing of cattle,
the singing of birds,
the talking of people,
the rattle of wheels –
so evening arrives,
a fine, big evening.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



WHY DID SILLY ONULĖ CRY?

Onulė found on a pathway
A piece of red yarn
From a child's stocking,
Or maybe from a rainbow?

Onulė sat down on a hummock,
And she felt so sorry for the yarn,
That she burst out crying,
So sorry she was.

And Onulė felt sorry
For the nest of the lark on the ploughfield,
For the bee that fell into the pound that morning
And the footsteps of the child in the sand.

And Onulė felt sorry too
That ploughs would cut up the lark's nest in the ploughfields,
That the bee wouldn't come home with its honey,
And those children would grow up and get old
And the child's red stockings
Would become too small for their feet.

So Onulė sat by the pathway
And cried,
Holding the yarn in her hand.
So sadly she cried
As if her house had burned down.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg



* * *

The western light dims ... up high, 
but through a window, 
as if looking into the spirit 
huge eyes watch... 
faceless.

On the roads people move, 
dark, burned out souls, 
across their faces slips a stillness 
like the shadow of the moon.

From word ... to word 
time stretches. without end, 
and staring into eternity 
the frozen eyes of a madman.

Translated by Birutė Bilkštys-Richardson



UPON
RETURNING
VYTAUTAS BLOŽĖ'S
WHITE CAP
FORGOTTEN IN THE GARDEN

Two months have passed already,
still it won't eat anything.
Everyday it is sad and silent.
Evenings I leave it bread and milk.
Mornings I find the food untouched.

At night when lightening flashes
I hear it how it sobs silently, like a child.
Only when I get up and light a candle
does it calm down.

Lonely, it hides from stranger's eyes –
under old clothing 
and potato sacks.

Once I invited over its acquaintances –
other caps – but it didn't cheep up,
or join their circle.

Oh how I want it to live long,
long enough to have its photo taken.

I asked some children 
to record on tape
Baisogala,
Rome,
the suburbs of Vilnius,
the falling of leaves into Ratnyčėlė stream,
the wonderful life of parents;
their gentle conversation in wedding photographs.

The cap grew even sadder.
At night it began to sob more sorrowfully,
fearing that all this may be taken away,
fearing unjust beatings
upon its bare head;
the conscious injustice of people,
and also
that I might bind it
to something beautiful
and eternal.

The white cap
cheers up some
when I gather apples in it
and offer them to nice people.

But look –
we've received a letter informing us
that Autumn is approaching;
and a recording with the first frost
has already been sent out;
that it is time for the white cap
to bid the birds farewell.

I even widened the yard,
so there'd be somewhere to wave from.
Only, the cap,
wriggling beneath my palm,
seeks solitude,
squeaking sadly,
begging for warmth.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



* * *

Till next spring
I've just put away seeds, 
lulled to sleep all the flowers 
and sealed up
the weak eyes of last sprouts.

Now I sit and keep thinking:
if only there'd be enough people 
to eat bread,
if only there'd be enough people 
in spring
when the seeds are awake.

God grant
that the opening flowers 
could see all us again 
still alive and kicking, 
that we all were enough 
for each bird
on its coming back home.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



* * *

If I am a tree, some day to be cut down,
don't turn me into fencing,
or chop me up for wood.

Make a bridge over a river out of me,
a door, or threshold,
where greetings take place.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



MOTHER EARTH

Donelaitis lies in the earth
among old swords and serfs,
deep under roots and pastures
and the sonorous airplanes.

Many more will leave the road here,
groping at twilight for their door.
Many more will be left searching
for home, once they get there.

Far away, heading east and west,
they hauled logs and people off.
Here the birches hoist the flag
green on a tall white mast.

Round cottages and monuments
the ages crowd lush grass.
The peasant palm of Donelaitis
holds earth under the earth.

All that growth and blossoming,
with bright roads and ashtrees,
now claim all available space
inside your heart or palm.

And we'll find ourselves among them,
go wander some and then return,
and all gather on a hilltop, once we're back.

And from there we'll get to scan
all the distances we've gone;
where the grainfields run in waves,
ours all the earth we planted on.

Whether I'm blacksmith or beggar,
or a sower of vast green woods,
righteousness is not a plow
you can force out of my grasp.

Do your work like Donelaitis,
with his peasants plow the earth,
till the salt has left your body
and your feet feel chilled to death.

So we'll go out, in our shirtsleeves,
till we have the fields worked clean;
with the planes and rockets above us,
hone our scythes to keep them keen.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



LEGEND

A woman with sunset-red hair
stood by the seashore,
the vastness cradling her
like an uncontainable scream.

Then slowly, she undressed: a naked
sea faded back.

To the screeching of gulls she waded
into the wind, into lightning and deep space.
Then went on, wading deeper in
and slowly became the sea.

Somewhere on shore
there were old sailors, drinking,
back from their storms
and screeching gulls,
back from dangers, drinking wine
as red as a sunset over the sea.

They made leering faces at the storms
and at women
in harbors who went from hand to hand
like cursewords.
They laughed, wine-painted,
as men back from danger.

But one of them sat quiet all evening,
an empty wine-glass clutched in his palm.
It was a hand
nets had sheared,
salt gnawed at.

Staring he was, deeply as if into himself,
where he saw a woman with sunset-red hair
walk slowly into the sea.

And then
he raised his head
and suddenly
heaved the emptied goblet at the wall.
The place grew still and in that silence
there was the glitter of smashed glass.

But in that silence
appeared a woman everyone could see,
the sunset-red hair she had,
and she was wading into the waves
like a sail
beginning to merge in the distance
with chattering gulls
and all those who fail to return from the sea.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



LAMENT, WHILE DARNING THE GLOVE
OF A DECEASED SON

Weeping all I can, white to black
to the green I'll add red
	Off where his tender feet lie
	beside the Lagoon
	while his gentle hands freeze
	in Prussian lands

The white to yield a road for you
and red to bring morning sun
	for you to see
	for you to hear
	the sun going on

The green to get the haying grass
all that black to make your sign
	on a white roadbed
	on a long letter
	on the wing of a bird

So weeping the white I have into black
to the green I'll add red
	Draw the gentle hand
	back from Prussian land
	tender feet to come home
	from the Lagoon

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



LEGACY

Choose me from all the others
so you can wear black,
if I should be gone for good.

Choose me from all the others
so that when the sun sets
you can be sad, all by yourself.

Choose me from all the others
so that while you wait for me
you can hear a long way.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



SIMPLE SONG

I sit by the shore
and count the years,
staring at the water
or something up here.

Waiting for summer
or for the mail,
or listening for
souls on the trail.

The rains all pass,
and snow melts away,
yet no word from you
ever comes my way.

Birds have come back,
all these years now.
While looking at you,
I see no one I know.

I see your face
pale as a plank.
Thinking of you
I draw a blank.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

it's incomprehensible
to be alive
uncommonly
odd
to be matter
as well as have the sense
that you are something else

it's incomprehensible
to identify yourself
with matter
and then
to vanish
while knowing
all that in advance

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



AN UNWRITTEN SONG

I'll sell the land and buy me wind
to hear you over hundreds of miles

I'll sell my ox and buy a scythe
to mow you down for hundreds of miles

I'll sell the flax and buy a spinning wheel
I will love you and you'll cry for me

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



* * *

Get involved in poetry and you're drowning in drink,
clawing your own throat in public, making believe
you're being slaughtered to scare the kids;
till the word-fumes wear off.

You can still feel intact, up to imagining that a noose
is the best way to lift off for eternity,
while dousing yourself in the glow of word-radiation,
without knowing where you'll be coming back from, once it's dawn,

and you're getting the dubious once-over, like the total stranger
who's returned from a labor-camp rehabilitation ...
Scared now to break a crumb for myself, I can't bring myself to speak,
moaning and short of breath, till I'm back to being human.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



SORTING MY SOUVENIRS

These, most likely, will be of no use to anyone.
Nor these. The images are out of focus,
the colors faded; all that makes copies impossible.

And these will have to be relinquished to the archives:
they belong to the dead.
Being shreds of conversations from emptied old wine bottles,
they came to hand unexpectedly among all sorts of odds and ends.

The ones here I'll have duplicated (at the request of a newspaper).
It seems they're still suitable for inserting into a poem,
or to be filmed for television.

I'm keeping a secret text. After the war, and to someone's dictation,
flying swallows inscribed it on the sky above our village.
Memory still retains the autumn fields,
when they emptied out like communal halls
before a gathering of returning ghosts.

From time to time I rearrange the jugs
that are filled with the fragrant honey of prayers
which we used to retrieve after wracks of storm or coughing.

The ones here have all the right antidotes, in case of insomnia:
against torments of conscience, for remorse,
or to restore health, prevent insanity,
ward off retribution, treachery, alienation.

I also have the right kind to blend in with poems,
with sedatives, coffee, alcohol, or tears.

I leave nothing unturned, while sorting and collating,
collapsing on the spot, exhausted, into a sleep
as solid as rock in the path of the Almighty.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



AN EXPERIMENT

What didn't he do
so that he would be
what he already was
without trying to be
what he already was

What didn't he try –
he sang in a choir
bought new ties
shoe polish
a full length mirror
learned to admire landscapes
to love wild animals

All in vain
he thought
after all it's impossible
to become what you already are
and when you try to be
what you already are
then you are not already
what you already are

What he didn't try
that he might become
what he already was
then he would already be
what there already wasn't

And he thought
Lord, what if
someone saw me?
how embarrassing
he thought
while it's still not too late
I must run

And he broke into a run
knowing
that he wasn't running
by himself in the way
he would run for himself
in the way he would run
without trying to run
as if he were running without trying
as one really runs

However much he tried
not to try
it was still trying
to try
not to try

How ridiculous
he thought
how ridiculous
the whole thing is
it would seem that someone
is trying to mislead me
so I'd become even more confused

Yet it is impossible
to run so that you don't run
and still you must run
so that it doesn't look
as if running
you are trying
not to run
because maybe a higher force
is watching you

If you were to stop
he thought, then again
you wouldn't stop by yourself
wanting to be what
you already are not running
and therefore you must run
to run away somehow
from this silly running

And he runs 
with feathers from his pillow sticking to him
with eyes that don't see
he runs running to remain first
and is chased
by the bodiless forces
of several worlds.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis




KUKUTIS' WORDS

Why doesn't anyone go there?
Not a single child scampers in that direction.

– Kukutis, words are working on words over there –
words are trained to understand
what they mean.

Why don't even the doors creak over there?
Nobody looks out the windows?

– Kukutis, words are being made there, for you,
they are prepared,
so that even you would have something to say.

So you are saying that they are very busy
and don't let anyone in?

– Kukutis, they guard your words there,
from your own loose tongue.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis




AND EARTH
WENT UP
TO HEAVEN

Where will you buy fire for your axe?
What will you grind, Kukutis, this winter?
Where will you find a chain for the cow
So that you could tie the earth to her?

During the war, as the bird-cherries bloomed,
a crazy woman cried in the farmyard –
There are no fields! There is no God!
There are no nails left for the hammer!

Burning towns blazed red
as a rooster's comb.
They beat a barren sheep with a rod
because there was no more food left on the table.

How can one earn a living from fire?
There won't be enough of it this winter.
The crazy woman glanced over the well's rim –
and earth went up to heaven.

Fish came out of the waters
as the world's treasures burned.
For sins, for the past –
they beat a dead man in the market grounds.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



TOOLS'
WORDS'
PEOPLE'S
CONFUSION
IN THE KUKUTYNĖ

As Raseiniai burned
Kukutis's little axe ran
squealing
through Stonis' pastures –
and wood shavings 
flew from his pockets.

Then people broke into a run
after the little axe
dragging along whatever
they could carry.

And there was such confusion,
such confusion,
that people could no longer
tell themselves apart
from words or tools –
they started to harrow one another,
cut one another down with scythes,
plant one another in the ground.

They could no longer tell 
themselves apart from axes,
from pitchforks
women from men –
children could no longer tell themselves apart
from their grandparents.

They could recognize one another
only from notes,
from seals,
from the weight of grain,
from numbered horses.

And there was such confusion,
such confusion,
that even now, beards together,
two Kukutises laugh –
two sharp axes.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



MY
THOUGHT-UP
STORY TO CHEER UP
HANGED
KUKUTIS

In a wheelbarrow on feathers
they push the fools' king
so that he may look around and see
if the kingdom is big.
Along the way, lined up,
they ring bells for him,
thanking him
that they may thank him by ringing bells...

He rides around the earth
ten, twenty times,
and cannot find
where the kingdom ends.
Everywhere they consent
to their own consent
by singing and ringing bells.

"How many times?" the king asks,
does the kingdom go around the earth?"
"As many times," they answer,
"as there are times around the earth..."

And the king is amazed
at how the same ones
keep thanking the king for what
they have done themselves –
they thank him
that they may thank him
by ringing bells...

Only a few hanged ones
chase after the wheelbarrow asking 
that they be granted the permission to die.

"No," the king shakes his head,
"the rules of the kingdom are
that it is forbidden 
for the hanged to die!"

The king rides along in his wheelbarrow
and is followed by one fool or another
and all of them are the same king.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



INSTRUCTIONS 
FOR KUKUTIS
FOLLOWING RELEASE 
FROM THE GUARD HOUSE

a)  without thinking
to think
what you shouldn't think

b)  without seeing
to see
what you shouldn't see

c)  without understanding
to understand
what cannot be understood

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



HOW KUKUTIS
REGAINED
HIS SENSES

As I was creating heaven on earth
and laying out the sea's floor
and laying out the sea's floor
during Germany's fire
they came to take me
they put shackles on my neck
they put shackles on my neck
during Germany's fire
under Blinstrubiškė's oak
they hanged me.

And when they hanged me
I quickly came to my senses:
I gave up my land
the heavens and Lithuania
the heavens and Lithuania.

Over there, beyond, in that other world
in Heaven, they gave me an apartment
under Blinstrubiškė's oak
they gave me seven feet of meadow –
what more do I need?
I've got seven feet of meadow
no plowing, no harrowing
at times a cow comes over
and fertilizes everything.

I just go on creating heaven on earth –
I loll about lazily
under Blinstrubiškė's oak
in a nursing home.

Over in that yonder world
I drive fish into the waters
and understand what
I never could understand.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



A LAST FAREWELL TO KUKUTIS

Burrowing into grass
small Kukutis dies
Curled up like a bee beside his hive,
hee rests for the last time
breathing in all the good of life.

Kukutis dies, so small –
unseen from airplanes
undetectable on radar screens
unnoticed by submarines.

Kukutis dies quietly,
without interrupting radio waves
train schedules
airplane flights...

Small Kukutis dies
not hurting anyone – like a sigh.
So small, invisible to the entire world,
he dies for all time,
dies wherever there is a trace of life,
a corner of the heavens,
a handful of earth,
an ant toting a fir needle.

He dies in birds' nests,
on snow-covered mountain peaks,
in fruit seeds, in grain,
he dies in books, in bee hives...

He dies where he can never be –
in express train windows, assembly halls.
He dies for words, for children, the Antarctic,
Ararat, Australia, the Andes,
he dies for the entire world...

A star, risen over the horizon
broadcasts his eternal death
to infinity.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



KUKUTIS
DREAMS UP
ŽUVELIŠKĖS VILLAGE
IN THE CATHEDRAL SQUARE

	Kukutis rested his head on a loaf of bread
	and dizzied from the summer's heat
	dreams up Žuveliškės village
	in the Cathedral Square

	An officer approaches Kukutis and shouts:
	– Kukutis!  Stop!  Dreaming!
	In a public square!  What are you looking for?
	Kukutis!  In women's cleavages!  What will
	Europe! Think!  About us!  In a historic square!
	You've bred!  Pigs!  You've built!  Pigsties!
	Chicken coops!  Abolished farmsteads!
	Already crossed out of engineer's lists!
	Stop!  Dreaming!  Immediately!
	Stop dreaming up that cow trampled farmyard
	On the beautifully paved square!
	Those backward serfs!
	Those hitched wagons there!
	Near the bandstand where soon
	The orchestra must play!

	Make!  Room!  Immediately!
	For our countrymen!  They will view
	The bell tower!  Do you?  Understand?
	What?  Are you doing?
	Without permission you've dreamt up
	that barefooted Mr. Little Fish
	with a stork's nest over his head!
	What if someone had filmed him
	for the anthology of Lithuanian poetry?

	Ambulances rush over
	and the fire department,
	armed with fire hoses,
	starts to chase back into the ground
	the risen from the dead,
	washing the animals,
	and smoky serf's huts,
	overgrown with moss,
	while in front of the bell tower
	the Saturday volunteer brigade
	starts to knock over the well.

	The frenzied officer
	screams hysterically into Kukutis' ear:
	Kukutis!  Stop!  This dreaming!
	Can't you see!  What!  You've done!
	Can't you see!
	How they are filming in color!
	How will we look to the world now!
	Clean up the square!  Stop dreaming up
	those old goats!  They are not allowed to rise!
	They are registered in the death registry
	as illiterates – they won't be able
	to march ahead of time with us!
	There is no resurrection!  There is no afterlife!
	Therefore they don't exist either!
	As soon as the Saturday volunteer help knocks down
	the pigsties on one side of the square 
	Kukutis dreams up Žuveliškės again
	on the other side with Mr. Little Fish
	lovingly watching how bread is kneaded
	how it is softly pressed out from between
	the women's wide breasts

	The officer starts to scream even more furiously:
	Stop dreaming up that dirty Mr. Little Fish!
	Don't you see what he is doing
	turned away behind the bell tower!
	Can't you see how our countrymen
	cannot admire the bell tower clock!

	Don't you see!  How many gawkers
	he's attracted!  Don't you see
	how many cars have stopped
	in front of the cross-walk!
	Can't! You see!  That!  It's!  Not a joke!
	You must!  Quickly!
	Let the newly arrived brotherly Samogitian delegation
	pass through the Square
	to greet Lithuania!

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



UNHAPPY KUKUTIS IN THE POTATO PATCH

What shall I do?
Where shall I go?
When I don't have money 
there is bread.

The potatoes grew
but their flowers wilted. 
It's a large world
and yet the potatoes are small ...

There are so many airplanes 
up in the sky this year, 
but then next year, 
there might not be any.

When winter was here 
summer wasn't. 
Summer came
and winter disappeared.

When there was love
there was no woman.
Look, now there's a woman, 
but there is no love.

It stings the heart 
when trees chirp, 
planes fly,
but potatoes don't.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



KUKUTIS'S TRIP ON THE SAMOGITIAN HIGHWAY

As he was driving along Kukutis exclaimed: 
Oh how Lithuania resembles Lithuania! 
Her birches always resemble her birches 
and the skies
over Lithuania are always just so Lithuanian!

Where does Lithuania's resemblance to Lithuania come from? 
Anything that you could think of or remember resembles Lithuania.

Plowing, he bends down
to examine a clod of broken earth, 
blows some grain from his palms, 
smells bread baking, 
stands barefoot on the ground ... 
What gives Lithuania 
her resemblance to Lithuania? 
Where does it come from?
Nobody has ever managed to find it out and destroy it – 
whatever wars have passed through, 
however the land may have been trampled, 
Lithuanian skies go on looking Lithuanian.

And wherever you may travel,
and whatever you may think of 
will still resemble Lithuania: 
her skies,
her birches,
the warmth of her grain in your palms, 
her harvest fields
flowered by women.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis



KUKUTIS’S SINFUL SPIRIT

When Kukutis falls asleep
his spirit passes through his eyes 
and out of his body. 
Invisible to everyone 
it roams around Žuveliškės 
and no one can figure out 
who it is that is doing 
what is against the law, 
the regulations,
and the Ten Commandments.

Kukutis tosses and turns
in his sleep and groans: 
who is it bringing
all these mortal sins to him? 
And how do so many of them 
find their way into his dreams?

Mornings he cannot look 
women and children 
in the eyes ...

Oh and his life had been so pure. 
How he cleansed it every day 
by chopping wood, 
by carrying hay to the herds, 
by kneeling with a bucket 
beside the well –
inside he ought to be 
irreproachable.

Released from his body
his spirit bellows drunkenly. 
Unshaven,
his spirit enters the dreams 
of sleeping widows, 
whispers curse words
into children's ears,
tempts people drinking at the pub 
to denounce God himself.

On the third day
it returns groveling, 
dragging its dirtied, 
innocent shirt,
crawls up to the Lord God himself, 
kisses his hands,
and in a voice ruined by drink 
begs that Kukutis 
be forgiven the mortal sins 
it committed
without him knowing.

Tired out
it returns
through Kukutis's eyes, 
gnashing its teeth, 
and falls asleep, 
for life's long sleep.

Translated by Laima Sruoginis

Born in the village of Paserbentis near the city of Raseiniai, Marcelijus Martinaitis studied at the Kaunas Polytechnic Institute and worked for several years as a technician before completing studies in history and philology at the University of Vilnius. He edited literary works for various newspapers and magazines, was poetry consultant at the Lithuanian Writers' Union and a lecturer at Vilnius University's philology department. During the period of national rebirth in Lithuania he was an important and vocal member of "Sajudis", the grassroots political organization. Martinaitis has published ten collections of poetry and two collections of essays. A modern outlook on folklore, paradox and the grotesque is typical of Martinaitis's poetry. Psychological self-analysis is the hallmark of his poetic works. In his poetry Martinaitis draws extensively on the ethnographic wealth of the spiritual experience of the country folk. His most popular collection The Ballads of Kukutis, published in 1986, is a black comedy that attempts to describe the internal and external conflict between the mindset and outward reactions of an ancient pagan farmer suddenly having found himself within the de-humanizing bureaucratic structures of post-war Soviet occupied Lithuania. These "ballads" have been set to music, performed in theaters, read and chanted at mass rallies. Presently Martinaitis teaches Lithuanian literature and ethnography at Vilnius University, where he also leads a creative writing workshop for maturing young writers.