LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 36, No.3 - Fall 1990 Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas, University of Rochester ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1990 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

SEVEN POEMS BY EDITA PETRAUSKAITĖ-JUZUMIENĖ

Edita Petrauskaitė-Juzumienė was born on November 20, 1962, in Lithuania. When she was five years old, her father started to teach her English. The English studies were continued at school, which specialized in the English language. In 1980, she entered Vilnius University to study English language and literature. She started writing poems in English in 1984. She writes reviews on English and American literature. She has translated short stories by John Updike, Jerome Salinger, and the most recent translation is John Barth's "Menelaiad". She is now a literary consultant at the Lithuanian Fiction Translation Board.

FOUR TREES by EGON SCHIELE

Copper trees
in the faltering twilight
cruelly burn
the skin of the sun
with their fiery foliage
making
their tremulous vows.
Where do these echoes travel, these
magic nebulae?
To the haunted castle-land
where rhododendrons bleed?
Serene and dauntless,
do you rejoice in your parallel worlds
of Living and Knowing
besotted
by the brazen lodestar?
Silence. Silence.
The trees are voiceless.

87.01.09

THE IMP OF FEAR

The lake is merciless.
It mirrors every cell
and every nerve
of my cold self,
stares dumb
as the face of an idiot
reflecting everything he sees
but doesn't grasp.
Who is capable of ignoring
pale water-lilies
that brighten
the noisome night of my mind
where in the deepest corner
smiles death
the mild-eyed.

1987.06.29

Our voices mute with amazement
rise
from the deeps
of our lame selves
which ignore
the omens of future
and menacing past —
feelings
numb with despair —
magnanimously
l offer you
the tenderness
of stainless rose petals
on a rainy day.

1987.07.17

to s.

I'd rather be a statue
perfect and faithful like Isis
self-effacing
wily smiling in your hall
the ever-sapient smile
mutely
I' d speak to you
in all the languages of the world
call you
all the tender names
I remember
my almond
oh my bitter one
I'd tell you
all the dormant truths
that make our frenzied life
chaste
magic
and enchanging.
Listen.
I begin.

1987.11.23

l often see you in a
glass
black glass in an ivory frame
jet-black lake water
twinkling with water-lilies
so white they blind us
teach calmness
meditation
mock at the mud
beyond our feet

1988

to nida

Two dainty ladies a la Huxley
smiling at the naive Robbe-Grillet
speaking their own cantankerous language
Walk in the part of Boulogne.
Fidgety tennis-players romp gaily
smiling wearing something green and rosy
with their famous Oxford stockings
and their old fiendish black beards.
We smile at each other
deciding conceiving trying
to hide sincerity
to feign feelings
to play sometime a drama or two
to drink the bitter wine
red like blood we dream of.

1984.11.06

to peter

Flaxen July
crushed my vitreous doll's house
breezing by
in the ancient Cimmerian city
full of oaks oaks oaks
crepuscular love
of our eyes
falls
onto the slumberous carpet
of the white night
onto the sea
of white crispness
exploring
all the fortuitous detours
of fate

1986.11.12