LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 28, No. 2 - Summer 1982 Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1982 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

KAZYS BRADŪNAS: SIX POEMS

Translated by RITA DAPKUS

A LULLABY FOR ME

At last
Time has stopped —
At last
The game has ended.
At last,
At last
Sleep, die out with the fire . . .
Sleep . . . die out . . . with the little fire

AFTER 60

After sixty years on earth,
When, it seems, I have already been
Both a skylark and a rock,
A tree and a kernel of grain
A slice of bread and a sip of wine,
There is something to be joyous and regretful about,
While looking at the smoke of a fire
Which is leaning toward the cold —
I start to be earth.

TEMPTATION

From the steeple of St. John's bell tower
At your feet lies
A city,
History
And the present,
Life
and death.

Choose —
All will be yours:
Bread,
Honor
And domain —
If you bow to the idol
With your head held high . . .

But you take freedom, 
Paying for it with your death.

WHILE THE CHILD'S SUN STILL SHINES

God commanded me to be —
And I hang on
Like a tiny ant in the sand.
Around me are other little insects,
Bald and hairy,
And also a landowner's farm of worms is
A hole.

God commanded me to be —
To become weary and pensive,
To glance at the earth, at the sky,
And at myself
While the evening's sun still shines
Like a window
In a black ship of clouds.

LET THE BLOSSOMS BLOOM

(For Loreta and Jurgis)

The river comes flowing
And brings with it a name.
Man comes forward
And brings with him a surname —
A toponym appears:
A cross is constructed,
Smoke rises from a chimney.
In this way Sūduva was born,
Absorbed into our hearts.

A daughter comes forward
And brings with her a fire.
A son comes forward
And brings with him bread.
At the shore of another world,
In the shade of another sky
And another tree
A table is constructed,
A loaf is sliced —
Life begins.
Put your clasped hands
On the ancient table
And let the blossoms bloom.

EXILE

Where did you put my father
Who wished to die at home?
Where are the mothers,
Who followed behind? — 
At a distant shoreline
Lie their bones.
From Siberia and from Alaska
Blows only coldness.

I dig and dig and dig
The heavy fallow earth.
Birds collect
The scattered seed . . .

When I die,
Children, place under my head
The hard exile of your kinfolk,
And God will come and light
Every icicle.