LITHUANIAN
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
|
ISSN
0024-5089
Copyright © 2010 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc. |
Volume 56, No.1 - Spring 2010 Editor of this issue: Violeta Kelertas |
Four Poems
Susan Andersen
SUSAN ANDERSEN is an educator, poet and artist. She received an MFA in writing and poetics from the Kerouac School, Naropa University, and an EdD in English and Communication Education from the University of Central Florida. She has had Soros, Fulbright and USIS Fellowships in Lithuania. Currently she teaches in northern Colorado.
Vilnius Streets
(For Czesùaw Miùosz)
Why should that city, defenseless and pure
as the wedding necklace of a forgotten tribe,
keep offering itself to me?
C. Miùosz, “Dictionary of Vilno Streets”
Bridegroom
you are
timid with my language
Lapis and carnelian
seal your lips
You imagined I kept you waiting
to adorn my brow, my cheek
How long has it been?
Long enough you’ve taken on
another world’s angers
Struck in the chest, unworthy
this senseless constancy
Onutë, Doritë
sirens of the theatre door
once caught you
in nets
plaits and engagements
But who can hold to oaths?
A smile promises more
You should know
The toll-takers still wait
You left without paying
How did you manage
by cart? By skiff?
Best you weren’t here to see
the angels of Peter and Paul
blanch under whitewash
or Mrs. Klok go thin while her shop girls
grew bold on racism and cognac
German Street drinks to forget
it once was loved
little less than Jerusalem
A black undercurrent runs here still
tarnishes Casimir’s shrine
Barbara was poisoned by a crown
her bones lay under Cathedral Square
her visage, the East-gate Madonna
Only an old man can recall
these lives so brief
so brief
anonymous
lived in a useless end of the world
Memories chase through Arsenal Hall
The door out is not within
And you were ever outside
the naming of things: A street
a hill, a tree in summer
This is how we live
cruel and sensible normal life
The past is no gift
Don’t think to bring it back
Enough sadness fills the day
for you to sing
‘til dusk, dear one
Have I grown
hard, maybe too cold
to risk a song?
Listen, music rises
Mozart, but not the Requiem
Teach me now
to move my lips
I’ll speak the words you seek
2001
Aldona
That August evening after work was done
and supper finished (what there was of it)
heavy-limbed, warm, outside we’d come
to gossip on the steps or just to sit
in silence, watch the unrelenting sun
sink to the treeline. Seeing the forest backlit
you had an inspiration: Let’s take a walk
into the wood – a better place to talk
And so by slanting evening sun we three
charted a crooked path through unmown grass
up to the very border where the trees
are young and wild – at last we made a pause
From deep within the wood there came a breeze
more like a chill – seasoned with bark and moss
Into the forest twilight-time we crossed
Silently, we minded our own thoughts
I remember that the earth was cool
my face, still warm, contrasting subtly
I remember that the creek was full
of summer rain – flowed swiftly, noiselessly
I remember that all was well with you
and that the change came suddenly
The path widened, the grade began to fall
It was for you, that night before the war
Your story came, first visualized, then told
a five-year child, brown eyes deep with wonder
wakened to dress in the night, dark and cold
Across an open field, up on his shoulders
your father carried you. He begged you hold
fast, be still until the forest cover
On the wide forest path he put you down
to cross the refuge border on your own
How far you’ve walked, Aldona, on your own feet
quiet, unnoticed, through the wood you’ve roamed
And every branching pathway that you meet
may look familiar, but it won’t take you home
That bitter memory – is it not also sweet?
to know the moment when it all was gone?
The sun rose on your left that morning
the border guards’ dog sounded a warning
2001
On the passing of a rainy dayI think of you when I wash clothes
I think of you when I wash clothes, and I know what
else you are saying, Rasa, in an e-mail jotted probably late
I think of you in marble office pink-light next to Franciscan ruins
I think of Franciscan Street where you met me near the trolley stop
walked with me through courtyards
under sagged electric wires
I think of you quick and quiet. Not the tour guide
you let me notice the cat with one green, one blue eye
bathing at the hand-glazed window
I think of you in coffee, calendars, oh-did-you-hear
but never mean and always true
I think of your sweaters. I know you made them
Did you know I made mine?
And why did we never talk of knitting or husbands
or the garden I know you must have?
I think of us trading the words of our bosses
Two blondies in angora
what were we talking?
I think of you when I wash clothes
and wonder how you keep the wool from fading