LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 46, No.2 - Summer 2000 Editor of this issue: Violeta Kelertas ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 2000 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

From THE FORBIDDEN ROOM

NIJOLĖ MILIAUSKAITĖ
Translated by Gražina M. Slavėnas

* * *

I blow lightly
and the bottom
clouds over
the clear surface
turns dewy
magic mirror of the soul

in your darkest recesses
lies that room which I sense
I am not allowed to enter
almost forgotten
perhaps locked, no,
most likely it is not

what am I looking for
when I toss about in the
labyrinths of my dreams
but never seem to find
a safe place
or a real home
or the forbidden room

my palms turn wet
can it be here?

what I fear so much—to
cross the threshold, to part
the curtain, velvety, interwoven
with golden threads, behind which
is always the same scene

it repeats itself
never changing
terrifying
incomprehensible
dimly remembered
from a distant childhood

no, I cannot
I will not

the room I am not allowed to enter
a small box forced from my hands
will I ever know
what is hidden there
what treasures what secrets
what abysses

dark mirror of my soul

* * *

a little girl
has moved into
my mirror

I don't even
know her name
a bit too serious
a bit too pale
as if after an illness

like a child
growing up among
adults
does not quite know
how to laugh

or like someone after
crying, for a long
time, secretly, in hiding

those eyes of yours

do you know just this one word

good-bye

* * *

I look at you
as you sleep
in the wicker bed
where so many children
have slept before

my best friend's
little daughter

your breath is like warm waves
with the smell of fragrant
chamomile blossoms and of milk
it fills the whole house

your dream
passes on to me
so quiet, so peaceful

could there be
an angel
bending over you—with
golden transparent wings
somewhat like a dragonfly's

you grow in your sleep
too quickly, too fast

I think of nothing
I just keep looking
at a sleeping child

only a child
could
perhaps
make peace
between me and the world

* * *

you rushed in
laughing
such a sweet little thing

one summer day
a few years ago

rushed into my life

and you're still there
holding your breath
wide-eyed,
you are watching me
as I unwrap a doll:
first the head, then
two arms, body, legs,
it says hi to you

I made it
just for you

and you
press it to
your heart
wordlessly
in this so
incredibly clear
sun-washed field.

magic child,
you will never be mine

* * *

Delicate little girl, you
looked straight
into my heart

with the blue eyes
of wild chicory

you could have
been my daughter

your childhood
and mine
could have intertwined
as in a woven sash

reading
the same fairy
tales

picking many kinds of herbs
in fields
on river banks
at lakesides

taking them
to the attic to dry
pressed between old newspapers
looking up their names
in books
without beginning or end

you are full of secrets

your existence
is a mystery, a wild
chicory, in this wasteland
of scrap metal
and broken
blocks of concrete

* * *

So that one day you could
say quietly
with a smile

my home

* * *

lying flat on thick transparent ice
you look for a very long time
intensely, into the very
bottom of the lake
even your head seems to spin

what did you see there
what sort of world

wish I could
after all these years
step back into that one day

translucent, ringing

and read your thoughts

* * *

This smell, of lipstick
and powder, I adored it
I can almost hear the rustle
of real silk—my mother's
party gown
a golden band on her finger
her only ornament

things almost forgotten

she is combing her hair, the
sadness in her face stays fixed
in the mirror, and the raised
hand with the comb too

soft music on the radio

once again I am
a little girl
watching her mom dress up

the best of all
the prettiest
my own
no one else's mom is like mine

* * *

how you wished
to get sick

have the snow come down
in large quiet chunks

read Dickens
in bed, until
your temperature would rise,
toward evening, and
they told you to drink
your raspberry
and linden-blossom tea

just so you wouldn't have
to go to school

how I wish I could get
such a holiday today

* * *

I found a golden hair
on the snow

I picked it up
a long long
golden hair
left by an angel

he rested here once
by the river Rausvė
on his back
on Christmas day
one hand under his head

this is how I first saw him
unexpectedly
as I was coming downhill
on my sled.