LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 30, No.3 - Fall 1984 Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1984 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

JANINA DEGUTYTĖ: EIGHT POEMS

Translated by Marija Stankus-Saulaitis

AN AFTERNOON

On the riverbank
In deep grass
Under the large shade of the willow
Sleeps a white horse.

The forefathers' silver scythes have rung out.
The wooden carts have rattled away on the highways
Like a June thunderstorm.
The wells and the sagebrush have dried out.
The fires of the night herdsmen have gone out.

On the riverbank 
In deep grass
Under the large shade of the willow
Sleeps a white horse.

RESURRECTION

Arise,
felled trees,
from banks, far fields, primeval forests. 

Arise,
torn birds,
in sleepy nests and in dawning nebulous space. 

Arise,
dead herbs
and dead hopes. 

All you —
fallen as stars,
turned to dust,
dressed by stone.

 All you — 
crucified, 
sold,
betrayed —

On the morning flooded with nearing suns —
in a small poem 
arise — — —

LITHUANIA.

I left for the snowy midnight 
To bow to the earth and the sky.

ON A SNOWY MIDNIGHT

I left for the snowy midnight
To bow to the earth and the sky.

And in this silver point of space,
Where winds and ages cross,
Snow flakes fall and seconds fall
On my hair, upon my palms.
And they burn like salt,
And fetter the feet
With white unbreakable ropes.
But I shall not flee!
Only in this silver point of space,
Where houses and trees breathe behind my shoulders,
Where snow flakes fall and seconds fall
Upon my palms, into my heart, —
In red letters
I silently write on the snow
One name, one name . . .

BREAD AND SALT

Through a high gate, decorated
with wreaths and slogans. . .
Through a high gate
I enter
Like a guest
The dale,
Encompassed by woods, clouds, and flights of swans.
And I accept
With lips chapped by north winds
The black night and the white day
As bread and salt.

THE SUN

After your mother the first to kiss you was the sun.

 Like a distant red island 
It shone above the stork's nest. 
And the first sadness of farewell 
It left you one evening. 
And from the east to the west 
An unquenchable fire 
Envelops you in an arc on this earth. 
And your blood quietly ripples 
Your forefathers' prayer to the sun.

By the sun you sought your path.
By the sun you sought your home.
And by the sun you sought your bonfire.

After your mother the first to kiss you was the sun.

 . . . What if pain be not a foe?
for man enters the world
through pain,
for man rises godlike
from inquisitions
and the blaze of crematories,
and godlike creates
a new world —
from the clay of daily life,
from the voice of the corncrake,
from the colors of the ash bole,
from small words,
articulated for thousands of years . . .

 The squares empty and sail
 into the distance like ships.
In the green moonlight shudder 
the tall silhouettes of towers.
Fragrant lindens like herbs
nestle beneath one's palm.
Long ago the drums quieted, —
sing, flute.
Utter — 
That which the lips cannot utter.
Sate — 
That which the soil cannot sate.
Shelter — 
That which the sun cannot shelter.
The wind speaks to the cloud,
The tree speaks to the bird. 
The old cross at the edge of the field — to the rock.
The wicket of the homestead speaks to the sunset.
The threshold — to distanced footsteps. 
I speak to the coat with the bullethole
that my father left behind.