THE THIRST WE LEFT BEHIND

		for S. Parulskis

The cave earth the cave woman
	the cave peace and quiet I had to myself
I guarded the flame in its jaws
Ordered to lie down as bread ordered to lie down as water
As stone ordered to lie down and I did
I guarded the flame I had my hands
		in its jaws
Wait it did or didn't did bite or not
		I stayed silent
Kept up a prayer to the son of the Father
and to all the holy saints
		I stayed silent
By staying close I guarded the fire
	by maintaining the silence I keep within myself
Ordered me to go ordered me to carry
	the crag but I lay down
Fire into water bread into stone
	the hands have hot jaws
The thirst earth the thirst woman
	the thirst my peace and quiet I brought down
Cave I found for myself in the shade
Whether you waited or not guard
	Waited or not cross
	           Cross
		I came back.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



“ABOVE THE EARTH”

Stay with me a while
I'm well-acquainted with everything
		here:
I can show you the ways
From bed to table
from table to window
from lips to lips
	    up to the darkness
it's not very far here
nothing gets strung out
we'll be getting to feel it out
together play out
with our fingers to ceiling and wall
If that doesn't work
	    we can stay entirely motionless
to be just as god is
feel only the bodies
	    growing numb
time's icicles dripping
Stay with me a while
because even here
Sometimes the earth climbs in
And takes up tickling the nostrils
	    with a heave from
	             the ice-pit

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Rimvydas Stankevičius was born in Elektrėnai, a relatively new town in the capital region, named for its concentration of electrical generators. He came to Vilnius as a university student and stayed on to establish himself as a writer, both in prose and verse. His first book of poems came out in 1996. Poetry has its deeper roots in tradition, though sometimes it seems that no less than a thorough-going millennial thunderclap is called for simply to clear off the awkward debris clotting the surface. Stankevičius makes his stammered invocations as basic as Beckett's. His poems, while groping in their procedure to unearth origins, assert an extraordinary tenacity in holding the least everyday conundrum up for scrutiny.