THE 19th CENTURY,
WHEN I WAS SIXTEEN

the first drops brought color to the gravestones
the gloomy pedestals suddenly cheered up
yellow umbrellas, rowboats, foaming flagons
children's voices and the bald spot on the carousel's guard

raindrops and glowing coins
drenched all the poor and gentrified
all steps died out, there's only swinging
with dry squawks where cranes fly over their home turf

whispers from white dresses and lips
lean towards other lips like cherries –
the roofleaks and drips from ceiling –
in water or tears, bean-size, across a face?

and after bathing it's a sleeping elephant
steaming on the meadow after the cloud creeps off
with dizzy coolness the bird-cherries lure moths
fluttering an unconsummated kiss

12th of June, 1887

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



A POLICEMAN OBSERVES THE MARKET BIRDS

Back of the mound of peas and beans a black
and hungry child is sleeping, his hands grown together.
His sleep has been washed clean:
doves, goldfinches, parrots – the meditative
coop-birds, their script of transgressions etched
in mud. Hello, policeman, father, brother;
good luck, guardian, thief.
Your mouth is twisted, the wind in your hand holds
sleeping beanpods, with Asia's devotees and
the spirit of exhaustion in the mundane.
O fly, you bloodbug, memory of trading counters,
the bloody Sunday of slaughter steams
from a gaping mouth. You're calm. So calm. You are peace and quiet.
A sad woman totters along the garden wall: the market
countess. It's a long time she walks alone like this without being
under any obligation, having left behind churches, gods and
her partner in transgression who's asleep. She had brains enough to grasp
that nature defends all. Where does intolerance live, come back to
after a day of sweat? Who keeps it concealed, who buys up
the hoard of its thefts? It hangs in everyday calm,
in the day's crucifixion. The sleeping
market birds and wasps. Peach sugar.
You'll find all that sorrow amounts to here. Even me.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



BALYS SRUOGA RETURNS TO VILNIUS
AFTER THE WAR

boundless time: river: fire: sand
the pavement around the cathedral muddy
a stray wolf past his prime
toothless sapped of strength and blood
so subdued his eyes have no color

from autumn yellow leaves between the veins
a pagan sun manages to glint through
and the columns in white
cast a bloody October shadow

the body has aged
an annoying skein of veins: a wall crumbling
from having the images torn out you looking
out of cold black eye hollows
are silent as pale as a mother's ghost
as a family surfacing in a dream

senseless time: dirt: lacquer: cold
of the cramping foot and an unsteady earth
of the grotesque procession: wooden trumpets
red faces
of unsmiling women
birds crossing and long spells of rain and wind

the lone wolf at the foot of Bald Mountain
one windy night turns human
and crucifies his bones
in the murdered square
to the eternal prayer of the godless

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



CONCERTO GROSSO

here I open those gates and I see
wind bending the anemones
a spotted nation of elk in their dance
and even farther than that
my voiceless father is walking

a rope around his waist
or is it St. Francis with the long hemmed robe
brushing the grass

sight rises beyond my eyes
off to an insane speed above the roaring
forest of the sea
above the moss the ant trails
and under the buzzing hornet
hives
in the underground galleries of worms

the wind is in my fingers
and in the organpipes of my ribs
I'm watching the saint make music in the treetops
and I am every
note

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



ONE LANGUAGE

now it's a tree I'm talking about
the one tapping glass with its wet branches
and I speak of the language
it is speaking to us
and about the language by which it discovers
all that it wants to tell us

I want to understand whether it is the truth
the winds sing in chorus in the highlands of Tibet
in tongues of linen
filled with sacred texts
or whether they sing differently
from the One Moving
the branches on my tree

now I speak of the voice
echoing clearly above the slow
westward run of the river
I listen for:
drifting in at random from afar

can it go on sprawling once its speaker dies
the white breasts of birds
gleam above the water and inside the water
has the color I now speak of
and whether it's the same for every one

here the grass along the river is so wet
a spark has no time to hiss
the silence drapes your shoulders at once
it is a voice I heard
all through the night

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Alvydas Šlepikas was born in Vilnius, where he studied at the Academy of Music and has since established a solid reputation with the National Theater as actor, director and, most recently, playwright. The single book of poems that he has published consists of mature work that holds out the further promise of expanding on his basic, keenly humanist scope.