AMBER

I cannot weep
I cannot wail,
My spirit is empty like a dried-up inlet.

Weep for me
Wail for me,
Little Baltic amber
Cast out by the sea in darkness.

Now only God –
With wind, wave, fishermen asleep –
Can hear you.
The sea does not love me,
Mourn, mourn, little amber,
For the fate that is ours.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


BLESSING

You guide the old man's hand
Lest it falter
Gravely lifted
Before death
For the last time to bless
His kneeling children,
The hour come
For life's tough regrowth
In still another springtime.

The testament's completed,
To each – his due;
But can the loving heart
Be silenced?
Alone, they'll plod to furrow fields,
Sow fallowland with crops,
In springtime harvest wheat,
Their father in the silent hill
Restless with pinetrees.

Unless he's blessed his children,
He will not rest,
He will hear their weary footfalls
Hard on paths to planting;
Upon his coffin, drop by drop,
Through sultry harvesttime
Their sweat will fall.
Nohow, from the grave, will he contrive
To summon them to noon's siesta.

You guide the old man's hand,
So sensitive a hand,
Before the sowing, it blessed fields,
And even clouds before the storm –
That it might ultimately bless
Man's weary footfalls,
Man's harsh days,
Perennial springtimes
Destined for another greenness.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


LAND OF CROSSES

Long will you wail and hide your head
If the last of your crosses fall;
While they're steadfast, the sun turns back in winter,
Grasshoppers frolic each year in the rye.

Rue and lilies have been nourished under crosses
Where grain let free young shoots;
Your days hung low like a great bronze bell,
You found solace in your pain.

You had faith in the providence of the Lord,
Not in the sowing and harvest of the earth,
Even as the crucified Lord's five wounds
Reopened in your being.

Innumerable the days, your wounds dripped blood
Into the earth through chalices of flowers;
The oakgroves sing new psalms to you,
Evening grasshoppers sing your consolation.

The sun grows weary, seas wail deeply.
Crosses swerve, ray break off –
You, forgiving deep trespasses,
Stride the highway of tears to your destiny.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


PRAYER

You know how fragile our minds are, Lord.
In your unlimited wisdom,
Strengthen me that, when grasshoppers fiddle in the fields,
My heart won't break with grieving.

The dream and the reality, to me, are one –
I yearn for storied names and places;
Strengthen me, Lord, that before death awhile
Grasshoppers and I might be merry together.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


DIALOGUE

We talk together
As if from two planets,
One south,
One north;
We speak
Of cursed todays
And blessed tomorrows,
We do not understand each other.

You tell me:
Look, what a clear dawn
Brightens the horizon
Of our fatherland's gloomy depths.
I say to you:
You dream! This is not dawn
But a glow
Signaling new flames will consume us.

You protest:
Enough of your theories –
Already we cannot see the full moon
Through our tears.
I reassure you:
Tonight we wash the full moon
With tears
That others tomorrow
Might see more clearly.

We talk together
As if from two planets –
All night we sit side by side
Before the same fire.
Tell me:
What separates the heavens
Of the north and south
To fork such lightning in your eyes?

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


THE HEART OF POETRY
 
The first blossom glistened with dew –
The rest of the world will soon flourish...
Sing, Ikhnaton,
Sing, Francis of Assisi –
Once again the sun,
The heart of poetry,
Rises from the night!
 
There are no thorns
Or spear wounds
In that heart –
It is open to our song of joy
On this side of the morning,
And to your voices
Beyond the gates of time.

You do not know, poor man of Assisi,
You cannot feel, King Ikhnaton,
How much I would like
To be reborn a blossom,
To call myself brother of the sun –
To lose myself in the melody of morning...
 
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
 
 
CHILD
 
Sit me down in the mountain grass
The way you would an orphan child
And leave me – I will be protected
By the wings of flying birds.
 
Put a golden dandelion in my hand
And let me play with its petals –
Laugh when the wind chases the day
Across the sighing autumnal fields.
 
I like that yellow sky,
The child's smallness, the earth's dread,
The millions of flying birds,
The dandelion in my hand.
 
I know You will protect
The child in the grass
When the black bird tries to strike him down,
When the wing of night touches the flower.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE HARMONY
 
You give me
Whatever I pray for,
As if you cannot say No
With lips seared dry
By the burning of suns in the crosses.
You inspire the words of the prayer,
Take pleasure at the harmony
Of the birds and stars.
 
I ask little –
You yourself know
That the spirit brims with love
Like a tulip that has inhaled
All of the nectar of the morning.
Today the oceans and hills
With which you dizzied me
Rang out like a song.

The holy fires will fall
From the stars.
Birds will carry the embers in their beaks
To the tulip chalice –
To my sung-out soul.
You divide your treasures,
I rock in joy
On a reeling wave.
 
Take pity,
Bend the wings
Of the weakened bird on the road
Like you bend the wave
In your ebbing sea.
You are my father, I your son –
I always drown those embers
With my tears.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys
 
 
SEVEN RIVERS
 
In the other life the seven rivers
Met only in the sea.
Evening embraced them,
Holding a crown of bloody thorns.
 
The rivers are fortunate to have escaped.
But we remained here,
Helpless near the seven dry furrows,
Fingering the sands.

Christ's blood is on those thorns –
Sunset, do not be filled with pain!
Someone repents there, face pressed
Against the seven shores...
 
Somewhere an oasis rises,
Water spurts through rock –
The seven rivers in the seas
Sing a tuneless song.
 
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
 
 
ROCKS
 
I am no longer amazed that your fingers
Left their imprints on the rocks
When you touched them
That first creation morning.
Where would the willow tears fall tonight,
Where would they roll down the supple branches
If our rocks
Near the rivers and ponds
Were not marked
By the fiery imprints of your fingers?
 
I am no longer amazed that our willows
Are not sorry to shed their tears
When in the moonlight
Lilies exult in the rivers and ponds.
Where would the awakened stars wash tonight,
Where would they bathe
If the willow tears
Flowed down the flat rocks
Into the damp grassland ground?

Translated by Jonas Zdanys
 
 
THE WANDERERS
 
Where were you, o my Lord,
Through that long night
When the wind blew out the candles
And the embers no longer burned?
 
Where were you yesterday when we cried out
Having lost our way?
Not a single errant spirit
Wandered through the fields.
 
The morning star in the sky had died,
The moon was not yet born.
The angry trees in the forests hurled
Harsh curses at the wanderers. –
They were disturbed by our sighs.
 
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
 
 
RIVERS
 
The slow flowing rivers
Of the land of our birth
Can't be blamed if, wakened by spring,
They seek the sea.
To the sea they carry blood and tears,
To the sea they carry your sighs, Lord –
And now they have deepened
My own great pain.

Even near their mouths
The river currents do not slow.
They carry many words of love
To the dark and terrifying depths,
They carried my longing,
Many shining sunsets of the spring.
And now I know
Why the ocean sighs,
Why the amber thrown to shore
Is so transparent.
 
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
 
 
THE OLD GRAVEYARD
 
If I am found unworthy
To enter the kingdom of peace,
At least remember, Lord, that I closed the gates
Of the old graveyard more than once –
As the wind tossed and banged them
And did not let the dead rest easy
After the labors of the summer and fall.
 
You understood their weariness once –
Their hot harvest, their cold treshing.
Those people left life calm and gentle.
Though they died in pain, they lie
With placid faces in the ground
Beneath their treasured wormwood trees.
 
With placid faces and tranquil hearts
They placed their heads on the fresh-cut sod
And died believing in eternal peace,
And so those graveyard gates were banged by wind –
So hard that in the ground
The heaviest coffin lids were lifted
And the crumbled dust in the coffins moved.
 
Lord, I rejoice that I braced shut
The graveyard gates with a rock from the road. –
Give me peace in your kingdom,
Give me eternal peace!
 
Translated by Jonas Zdanys


OASIS

How green you are, oasis,
How pure,how alive!
Where could I find such peace
If not in you!

The caravan passed by
Bearing frankincense, gold and myrrh,
And you remained in my Sahara,
Open to the miracle of this star.

The three travelers refreshed
Themselves at your shoreless river
And rode off to the holy city
In the name of the Lord.

I do not know what to call them –
Wisemen or kings,
But their sign will turn the stars
In new directions.

I began my journey
Without frankincense, gold or myrrh,
And found my own way across the deserts
To the city of the Lord.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


SUNSET

This bloodfilled sunset
Promises nothing good –
Only a night without dawn:
With the emptiness of fallen stars,
With restless nightwatches,
With a painful glow.

I know all its promises,
The quick red flicker of flame
In the windows of home.
It will soon grow dark. Help me, Lord,
To drain this bitter cup
To the bottom.

It will grow dark. Change into an eyeblink
This long night without dawn,
Without love, without dreams.
Lord, fill the emptiness of the skies
With my grief,
Deepen the oceans.

I know that in the divine wholeness
Even the star that falls into the sea
Does not find only emptiness –
Let my grief engulf
This bloodfilled sunset
And this night without dawn.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


MIRACLE

The land called Heaven revealed itself –
It was seen by God's chosen;
It was seen by the wild charlocks
Flourishing in the summer fields.

I hurried to the well
To wash the dust from my face,
And the Lord unlocked
The shell of each snail in the sea.

Each had enough air to breathe,
Each drank the joy of morning –
The earth became an altarstone,
The charlocks flamed like candles.

Who today would want to return
To the dark shells of the sea snails?
Like an infant after baptism,
I have been washed by the waters of grace.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


WE THREE

We three traveled to the town of Emmaus,
I, you and he,
Lamenting that with us also traveled
Great sadness.

We were weighted with Golgotha's hill,
Defiled crosses,
The curse of our betrayed God,
Thirty-three silver slugs.

And we believed that we were equal
Children of the dark
As we walked farther from God's holy city
Along the paths of night.

And it was pure luck that we asked him
To spend the night at the inn
Just when that terror-filled sunset tried
To tear the three of us apart.

We found there wine poured by his hand,
The prepared fish,
And as he broke the bread we cried:
It's Him, it's Him!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


SLEEPWALKER

You, who cure sleepwalkers,
Come, come to me –
I am lost in pleasant dizziness.

Come, not to heal or calm,
Not to place hands on my head,
But to warn the willows
Not to whisper my name.

Leave me in this happiness
Between sleeping and waking,
Bless the melody of this silver life
As it pours into my heart.

It's good to walk the rooftops,
To see the silent town beneath my feet,
And not know how long
You will let my shadow touch it.

Come, hold back my body
If the demon strikes to smite me –
The horrible abyss gapes below...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


RESURRECTION

I know you raised Lazarus
From the dead,
And his weeping sisters
Soon quieted.
Why do the waves wail in the seas,
Why do my sisters cry out
There is no resurrection?

Does it matter that stones
By the sea's edge laugh
At my tears as they fall
On the hot sand?

With a song of anxiety, ripened in pain,
I will lift autumn like a coffin-lid
From the dead springtimes –
I will call back the skylark
To my fatherland's fields,
And in his voice
Each grain of earth will feel
The triumph of resurrection.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE SETTING SUN

Let's measure out the shadow with our steps;
We have enough time for our task.
It's not too early when the fall stops raging,
It's not too early when the sun turns white.

We will soon know how many steps
It takes to reach the coming shore of night.
Soon shadows will tremble in the valley
And the sunken bell will waken in the lake.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


UNEASINESS

This twilight is calm,
Only stars fall,
Only rivers drone,
Only hearts tremble...
Someone may think
That there can be peace
Even in uneasiness.

He who stops
The stars and waters
Will stop my heart.
I will leave my uneasiness
To the waters
And the stars!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


NIGHT WATCH

What is left of that night watch
Since I lost everything!

The full moon remains
With the shudders of solitude
And the plains
That long for the dawn.

Sadness remains in the heart
And an inclement fate.

I have lost you,
I will lament till dawn to the full moon:
What a night,
What a pitiable night!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


REED GRASS

The fogs of fall
Will cover the stars,
Impenetrable quagmires
Will cover the clearest lakes.
And no one will see
How the reeling reed grass
Was dumbfounded in the dark.

Space is blind,
Depths are blind –
Complete darkness
Has covered my earth and sky –
How sad you are,
Oh, reed grass, seeing clearly
With the eves of lakes and stars!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE ASTRONAUT

I don't think I'll live to see
The first astronaut
Who will see the stars
In the timeless cosmos.
When he comes back
I will have made my own journey
Into space
From which no one
Returns.

When he talks
About Alpha Centauri,
About light years
In constellation nebulas –
I will have long since
Stopped speaking
And will have turned
Into a wandering piece of dust
In the cosmic night.

The crowds in joy will carry
The astronaut in their arms,
They'll keep his spacesuit
In a museum.
But the wind also
Joyfully carries the leaves –
Carries the holy remains
Of summer...

I can be a piece of dust
In the expanse of the sky,
I can be a leaf
In the captivity of fall.
I know who owns this
Great universe –
The leaf,
Dust, autumn,
Constellations, wind.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


DUSK

Only three small stars
Hang low in the sky.
Fog rises from the fearful waters,
My home drifts into darkness.

How can I live, how can I love and die
With those three stars –
How can I offer my heart to the sunrise?

The path is black and the trees are black –
I cannot see a thing;
But I know who prays that I rest easy
On the other side of night.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE OBSERVATION

Let's wait until
The joker poet Li Po
Comes down the path of the sharp hills
To joke with the moon.

The gates in the yard creak open –
The forests do not feel his steps.
Li Po walks softly
Carrying a cup brimming with wine.

Let's wait – soon his shadow
Will nod in the loft
Like a lotus blossom
Bobbing on the lake waves.

Let's listen – soon the poet
Will ask the moon to drink
His joy or sadness
From the brimming cup.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


LIGHTS

Again the night
Opened my eyes –
I watch the evening lights,
And they seem clearer
In the water
Than in a window.

They are real ropes of gold –
But who will tie me with them
To the lights
That never dim in windows
And never die
In the ocean depths?

This harbor
Is a black window
Swollen with crystalline lights.
I search for one small gleam
In the water
But do not find it.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


IN THE COFFIN

There are no cracks in the coffin
For light to enter –
Whoever made my coffin
Loved night more
Than the dawn.

Light breaks up
The thickest clouds –
From these coffin boards reflect
The smiles of the stars and sun.

When the
Sunset-blinded ponds
Regain their sight at dawn –
Will I see you
In the water lily?

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


OPEN YOUR EYES

You don't see the brightness of the sun 
Or feel the glow of love, 
And you wonder why the full moon 
Looks so angrily at you.

And why shouldn't it stare,
How could it not condemn such blindness?
You – splinter of the morning star –
Open your eyes, open your eyes!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


LET'S LOOK

Let's look straight 
At the greatness of the stars, 
Raising our eyes from the dewed fields. 
It's said that they glow for you, 
Insect of t'he earth.

But is it for us to know 
What art that is, 
What learning lies beyond the night sky, 
And in which galaxy live 
God's nations.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


MY MOTHER

I.

I watched you 
As you threaded the amber 
And decorated your hair with flowers. 
In the beauty of your adornment 
I still see summers playing 
With the rainbows of dawn, 
Plenitudes of blossoms.

You explained that 
Witches weave rainbows, 
The earth gives birth to flowers without pain – 
I saw happiness in your smile: 
The colors of the rainbow, 
The joy of the flower.

But when the wind
Howled in from the seas
I saw fear again in your eyes.
You hurried to thread the amber,
Finish your stories
And plait your braids –
Faster, faster ...

II.

As the sun returns 
To rest in the sea, 
So you returned. 
Each day, thinking of the shores of your birth, 
Your face gleamed 
With the colors of sunset.

You didn't seem to be yourself,
Singing of the waves –
The setting sun warmed your songs,
The storm shook loose the waves,
And I remained
A martyr of the memories of childhood

And I too
Was uneasy
When the sea-winds howled.
I watched you
Near the shattered amber home –
You stood in my eyes
Like a goddess of the seas . . .

III.

I am indeed
A martyr of the memories of childhood,
Though my face hides my secret well –
Perhaps only that Baltic wave
Knows my heartache,
Perhaps only that ocean wind ...

I believe with my whole heart 
That rivers are the daughters of the sea 
And lakes, the sons. 
Nothing clouded my young convictions, 
Not the restless sea, 
Not the terrible ocean whirlwind.

And I would not trade 
My mother's belief: 
The power of song, the truth of stories 
In the amber castle of the sea goddess, 
In the majesty of stormy seas.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE STONE

If the bird 
Doesn't recognize his last vear's nest 
Despite the plenitude of dry stalks – 
How will you, man, after this storm 
Recognize your home 
From one remaining stone?

Stone does not differ from stone – 
They are all alike: all cold. 
And our hearthstone will be as cold 
As a heart torn long ago 
From a flaming breast.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


SNOWFLAKE

I don't separate the blossoms from the snowflakes – 
They are both white. 
Spring ended long ago, 
Summer flourished. 
Then autumn took away 
The blossoms and the leaves. 
Now it's winter – 
Again I rock you, little snowflake, 
In my hand.

Again I sing the Lullaby –
Do you hear it?
Today the pinewoods will sing only
Christ's heartache
And the cedar branches will not rock you.
My palm will be
Your only cradle –
Rest there
Until we melt together
In the smile of the sun.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


BLOSSOMS

I am only a visitor; 
My brothers, blossoms. 
Chills shake my bones 
Beneath these black robes.

The frosts fell too early 
On the sunfilled lawns 
And on songs written down 
With the blood of my earth.

The frozen ground will lock up our hearts –
We will die, brothers blossoms.
I beneath the black cassock,
You beneath the northern ice.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE SEAGULL

Stop, stop as you fly by – 
We will sit together on this rock. 
The Almighty made this endless sea 
And those far shores for both of us.

There is enough room on this rock; 
It will suffice for both to rest. 
We can take pleasure in the full horizon 
And the hills of water that glow in the sunset.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


IF YOU CAME BACK

How lucky I would be 
If you came back to me – 
The yard, the house, the old books 
Would smell of chamomile.

The lindens in the middle 
Of the yard would rustle happily 
If they knew it was you 
Who hid my stories.

Oh, I know that they were left behind 
Where the frosts never end,
Where among the wreaths of mourning 
Are born the song and pain.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


AUTUMN

I remember that autumn 
When the fallen epileptic maple 
Shuddered in pain 
By the road. 
My world died then 
With the maple's first convulsion. 
And your last 
Grassland butterflies, Lord, 
Died too.

I scorned that autumn, 
Ignored its power, 
And in vengeance 
It mercilessly raged. 
Now each year bird swarms 
Hurry to funerals 
Though I am already buried – 
The butterflies in the grasslands, 
The maples by the road 
Are rigid. 
Now each year bird swarms 
Bind up the heavens 
With black wreaths.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


VIOLIN

The grasshoppers will lose their heads – 
It will be hard for men to keep still ... 
And I will play your violin, 
Francis of Assisi.

And I will try to be a grasshopper, 
Mad with the joys of summer. 
Beneath the Lord's blue canopy 
Soul abounds with grace and love.

But can we wait for miracles 
When the violin is but frail wood 
And the songs in the gardens end 
As birds wing to the skies?

If sometimes I play out of tune
And the violin strings cry out in pain –
Remember that I am just a grasshopper,
A summer player, before my death.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys

 
WILL HE KNOW

When the bird, sated with seeds, 
Does not find water in the stone crack – 
Will he know 
Where my rivers flow, 
Lakes lie?

Will he know what it means in a drought 
To be without one's rivers and lakes? 
Will he know, 
Will he feel 
That my heartache 
Can eat away the stones?

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


FRIEND

I have not found a better friend 
Than the saguaro in the sun's valley. 
Saguaro, I think of you 
Here in the sunset near the sea.

As if you had become a part of me, 
I feel the same uneasiness 
When the blood-colored horizon 
Presses down against the cactus.

You remained alone in the distance, 
Your arms raised high, 
Where my footprints were covered 
By the wild desert sands.

You remained beyond the sun's altar,
Among the endless windstorms,
On the other side of night and dawn –
In the memories of a wanderer...

O, how can I call out for you 
When my longing tosses across the waves 
And seagulls prophesy the end 
Of our eternal friendship?

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE VOICE OF VYTAUTAS THE GREAT 
(XV CENTURY)

I

My treasure – 
Two seas, 
The fertile plains, 
The bright clear sky, 
A million melodic skylarks, 
Trees, rivers, waves.

In my solitude I cry out: 
To whom will I leave my treasure, 
I have not sired a son – 
For whom will my beloved seas moan, 
For whom will the skylarks sing, 
Rivers flood, 
Oceans drone?

All crossroads 
Once led to glory 
But the future now inspires only pain – 
I haven't see my face in my son's, 
I haven't heard my voice in his – 
And I sit and curse all treasures.

II

I will sleep with the hope of triumph 
Like the hearth – 
With one glowing ember, 
And will dream through the severe night 
That I flame 
With fire for Lithuania.

I wore no wreath on my head,
1 did not hold a king's scepter in my hand –
The barren nights did not give birth to morning,
Did not stir the embers
In the ashes into flame ...

Biting winds will tear my dreams 
Like a flag raised high on the battlefield; 
The embers of my fire 
Will wander through cold eternity 
Until they regain their heat 
In your hearts.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


FAREWELL

In an hour 
Our visit will be over. 
Let's press our hands together, 
Bid each other farewell 
While the candle still flickers.

We cannot wait
Another minute –
The raised sails whisper to the clouds,
The winds have revived after three days –
We have to be on time!

This is no place for tears, 
Fainting spells, or panic – 
We have an hour to bid farewell 
A minute longer would sink us 
Like icebergs the Titanic.
 
Children, do not caress 
Your mothers long, 
Friends and lovers, laugh, 
And remember 
Your love is just beginning.

The swelling sails,
The awakening winds
Call us out to sail the peaceful seas
Unexplored by Vikings, Argonauts,
Or Odysseyans ...

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


MONUMENT VALLEY

Numberless monuments 
Without inscriptions ... 
I carry your name, eternal love, 
In my heart.

There are so many lives here, 
Scratched into stone – 
You sing in pain, 
Engraved within me.

If you know who made those letters,
Do not reveal it. 
My heart's blood 
Drips from the chiseled lines.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE TOMB

A hill of white ice rose 
In the north sea 
Like a marble tomb. 
And I wondered what thing fierce fate 
Had closed up so tightly 
In that tomb.

No name is carved there, 
No merits listed. 
How can I guess 
Whose cold body rests there – 
Whose remains travel 
To the shores of oblivion.

There is no cross on the tomb.
No initials of eternal rest
Carved on the ice slab.
I pray that I'll be able
To sing a lament
For the dead with the ocean waves.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys

 
EXISTENCE

You don't care that the wind will scatter 
The blood foam in the seas without a trace – 
You've locked yourself into your tranquil life 
Like the insect in yellow amber.

Don't believe that rocks by the sea 
No longer will sweat blood – 
The nine-headed dragon looks down to earth 
And awaits his hour.

It may be possible to guard ourselves, 
To kill that dragon with a lance. 
Thoughts and fancies have not yet jelled, 
The stones still pray for us.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


PELICANS

Pelicans, deliberations finished, 
Glide on my wings. 
It's time to say: Until we meet again 
To the palmtree shore.

What we saw – we saw, 
What we heard – we heard – enough! 
Twilight glides on pelican wings, 
The sun sinks into the sea.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


THE WINDOW

Your hands covered my window 
With bricks of cloud. 
I will not see how waves bluster 
With storms in the ocean.

I will hear only the drone 
That makes the stones weep. 
All the ruined waves 
Will break against my heart.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


LIFE

Do not look at my life – 
The tomb of Tutankhamun – 
God's secret shrouds and protects it 
Like the pyramid a body 
From your stares.

Do not enter the dark 
To plunder my treasure. 
May the blackened mummy – 
Man's youth – 
Decay in the smelted gold 
Of the summer sunset.

There on the wall are 
The unreadable signs – 
Man, beast and bird. 
They glorify 
The black mummy's 
Golden shell.

Along the border walls are things 
Untouched by death 
That we will never use. 
They will present you 
With protected life's 
Nameless riddle.

Oh, the same life, 
The same death 
In the atomic age 
And the 18th dynasty! 
Do not look at your brother 
Tutankhamun's face 
In scorn.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


LEGENDARY BELLS

On the shore dry grasses 
And in the lake, bells! 
Wind, you became my brother 
Long ago.

When they began to ring 
We both awakened 
And in the autumn rage 
Torment ourselves with leaves.

Should we chase them
Through the empty fields?
O Lord, my wits –
We left the bells!

The bells that woke us,
The bells that will
Put us, the stones
And the waves in the lake to sleep.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys

 
THE BLACK BIRD

It's already a good half hour after six, 
Day has dived into evening, 
And our heartaches will not echo 
In the stunned forest trees.

The black bird fluttered by – 
We saw the wings of the demon. 
The black terror twisted 
The chestnut trees on the hill.

Open up, gates of triumph,
When you hear the bells of victory.
Slaves, cry out in joy
On the awakening graves!

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


INSECT IN AMBER

I hear you saying:
What pure yellow amber,
How serene the insect in it!
	Why am I enclosed
	In this permanent urn
	Without compassion?

You discuss: 
How simple for him to rest 
In such blessed silence! 
	You cannot see 
	Agonized convulsions, 
	Wings fluttering 
	To find the sun?

These wings, shackled 
To earth's destiny, 
Never will flutter free. 
	Ironic –  
	On such frail wings 
	Stone and copper ages 
	Descend to us.

Wings testify 
The mystery of man's fate 
Arctic night promulgated 
With asthmatic mumbo-jumbo. 
	A revelation –  
	Restlessness in the north 
	Moved glaciers: 
	Agony was born.

Why do you say: 
What pure yellow amber, 
How serene the insect in it –  
	You do not fathom 
	All my summers' joys, 
	Encased in arctic ice, 
	Were borne to the Baltic 
	On a billow of amber.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


POWER

What power 
So easily each morning 
Moves the heavy sun above the mountains. 
What power 
So easily amasses, 
From blue sky springs, 
Fragile drops 
For mammoth floods.

Among us,
You seem helpless,
Shouldering all heaven.
Among us,
Snows melt later,
Fall's fields yellow faster;
Sleep, in our weariness, is shattered
By yearning that arrives
Along starways – 
To us alone ...

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


MOONLIGHT

Sans angels 
Sans seraphim –  
Solitary –  
You are pleased with our blessed wheat seedlings. 
Your tear falls through moonlight 
On the caraway 
Nor breaks there 
Nor shatters 
But gleams in my spirit, 
Like moonlight.

You weep
Still, so still,
Lord – 
Midnights, your breath so gentle,
We cannot hear you
Nor behold you
Billowing the wheat – 
We see
How wheat leans	
Against the winterberry,
How shoots bend
To wet loam.

Where did angels
And seraphim
Vanish
When your eyes welled with tears?
The night wells sorrowful and deep,
The caraway asks why you weep:
Is it joy
Is it grief
Stirring my spirit this night
Like moonlight ...

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


FORBEARANCE

Who would care to be in your place –  
Hear all, 
Lips closed? 
The cuckoo, craven, complains to you 
All day, 
The wakeful corncrake grieves 
All night; 
Often even we are not aware 
Of what we say.

Not those unquiet birds 
Conjured you, 
Earth's Christ. 
You have heard 
How heart dares lie to heart 
In moonlight 
And urchins bluster 
Over stakes; 
Blatant voices
Cannot break 
Your patience.

You alone know self-direction, 
Hear all, 
Lips closed –  
Else heaven's wrath would blacken 
Nights and days, 
And you would smite 
Each wayward word, 
Chastise man, 
And, raging, rend to chaos 
The consciousness of crake and cuckoo.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


BLESSING

You guide the old man's hand 
Lest it falter 
Gravely lifted 
Before death 
For the last time to bless 
His kneeling children, 
The hour come 
For life's tough regrowth 
In still another springtime.

The testament's completed,
To each – his due;
But can the loving heart
Be silenced?
Alone, they'll plod to furrow fields,
Sow fallowland with crops,
In springtime harvest wheat,
Their father in the silent hill
Restless with pinetrees.

Unless he's blessed his children, 
He will not rest, 
He will hear their weary footfalls 
Hard on paths to planting; 
Upon his coffin, drop by drop, 
Through sultry harvesttime 
Their sweat will fall. 
Nohow, from the grave, will he contrive 
To summon them to noonts siesta.

You guide the old man's hand, 
So sensitive a hand, 
Before the sowing, it blessed fields, 
And even clouds before the storm –  
That it might ultimately bless 
Man's weary footfalls, 
Man's harsh days, 
Perennial springtimes 
Destined for another greenness.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


MYSTERY

How can you be 
So stoic, Lord, 
Encountering the harsh north –  
All naked birches' shudders, 
All blanched fallow fields' gloom, 
All choked brooks' frustrations? 
How can you bear 
With not an outcry 
Nature's crucifixion, and yours?

Reveal, reveal
This mysterious patience
To my heart.
Birches with gales in their branches wail,
Fallow fields moan for shoots' resurgeance,
Frozen brooks heave sighs through ice.
You alone do not cry out
Why have you forsaken me, Father – 
As you cried for us Good Friday
On the cross, dying.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


STIGMAS

Here – no angel nor seraph, 
No Alverna hill, nails, spears –  
Only the interminable chain of dreary days 
With hymns, red dahlias, tears.

Here – no visions nor revelations,
Only a dead full moon;
But the day has come when stigmas open
In this forsaken spot too ...

I see multitudes on the bridge of Cedron –  
Impossible for them to keep hidden 
Even under their heavy hairshirts 
Of penance – the stigmas.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


PIERCED

You have pierced our homeland, 
Rooded Lord, 
Meteor through gloomy night. 
Our lanced being 
Will bleed into eternity, 
The hearts beside the Nemunas 
Bloody to the last judgment.

Now the Assisian will not comfort them, 
Nor his Hymn to the Sun bring consolation, 
The lances too deep in the submissive heart 
Of the sorrowing mother,
With you, Christ, fallen too often 
Along this land's stony spaces 
On your way to die anew.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


CURRENTS

Your blood cascades through my veins, 
Blood of God and man; 
Having felt your pulse, Lord, 
Its ceaseless cosmic rhythms 
In my body, 
In the road's small stone, 
In the stars' chorales, 
I hav'e not slept in peace.

My veins swell with currents
From divine sources,
Flowing through Golgotha
Ravaging life's coldness
With ice,
Ravaging reality
With Golgotha,
With death's darkness,
With moans of man and rock


Lord, as the roar of holy rhythms 
Rushes upon me, 
The road's small stone becomes kin, 
The farthest stars 
Grow 
Kin-close 
My broken wings 
Heal –  
I discover new strength in wings.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


THE TEAR

In that tear, the sun will revel, 
And night immerse her hair, 
In that tear will earth discover 
Its own deliverance.

What if the shroud's already sewn, 
The waxen candle lit –  
Does not the brow grow flushed
In the sun of harvesttime?

The sick man opens his eyes once more 
To live through the tear,
He bids the loaf of bread be cut, 
And water be drawn from the well.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


VENGEANCE

How I crave to ravage all remembrance,
Inter it in the earth,
Myself become a rock upon the roadway
Till night, returning home,
So diurnally curses me through ages
For her bleeding feet.
 
This would be my solitary triumph, 
My recompense and vengeance 
For her failure, under northern moonlight, 
To keep burning 
Behind one cold window 
A small sad light.

Lord, all else I could forgive, 
All else forget forever, 
Turned to rock upon the roadway. 
It's all one: their nest ravaged –  
Vengeance, cry 
The twilight ravens.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


LONELINESS

Do not mourn if you're not familiar 
With the west, south, north –  
Neither with birch nor willow 
Will you freely talk.

You will say it's so lonely here, 
And all will tell you how
Even morning moves through mire 
And stars, in falling, howl.

You will ask have men been maddened 
By last night's lightning forks: 
Broken – all communication 
Between their thoughts and yours.

Here, you will feel forsaken 
By man and all his world; 
Towards one land, in one direction, 
Your craven heart will turn.

You'll mark that moss amasses thickest 
On the north of trees; this done, 
You'll mourn you're no one's guest here, 
No one's brother, no one's son.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


DROUGHT

I am, this day, an exhausted well, 
A well turned arid with emptiness; 
The rains of the springtime passed us by 
Leaving my eyes untouched and dry.

I am, this day, like the garden fig, 
The garden fig, the Christ-cursed tree; 
It is said, in the burning heat of noon 
All cities and kingdoms will be consumed.

In my homeland, God, what a rain that was! 
All day I stood wet beneath the tree; 
Now, in this dryness, I turn to see 
Not one green leaf that shelters me.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


ARCHIMEDES

Let the raging billow crush the vessel, 
But don't distract me – I must seek 
The supporting central fulcrum 
Of all men's dreams.

I must collect and weigh 
The moon's pale gold in the sea; 
Stab me, slay me – when I cry Eureka 
Like a dying wave. 

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


GRACE

Grace it is that gives me strength, 
How else could I believe 
Men lance your heart, 
Bruise your brow with thorns, 
Mock the purple robe, 
The rood, the scourged God, 
Your temples pinned with sharp prickles 
Dripping incessantly with holy blood.

Lord, how else would I have faith,
Had I not also known
Lances through my heart,
Thorns against my temples,
The purple shroud my shoulders
Like a star, its shy sheltered glance
Veiled with northern lights – 
Had I not, night by night, drop by drop,
Fallen like blood from thorns
Down dawn's deep gold urn.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


THE SUN RISING

The sun rising, let's sit upon the hill, 
Let's look at the sweet steaming meadows, 
Let's follow the drowzy tread of the rye 
Through the new day's open spaces.

We will learn what the hairgrass dreamed last evening, 
We will know why the sheaves bent over to the east; 
You will realize how I've missed you 
In the trembling poplar choruses.

We will be merry, we'll play on our reedpipes, 
All day we will peer into pealing spaces –  
The sun rising, aspens awaken; 
The sun rising, clover reddens in the green.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


DREAM

To force your hands upon a dream is folly; 
Fragile, it will evanesce, 
Nothing will remain of visionary cities 
Nor their amber palaces.

You will shed your tears along one level 
Of fitful cloud or ordered loam; 
Timeless grief will repossess your spirit 
With vanished memories of home.

Perhaps our fingers have become too hardened,	
Insensate and rough with soil;	
They touch a dream – it dies that instant
And night becomes a blacker void.

Who can explicate a dream completely,
Its clouddrifts, cities, palaces?
There, I walk, an undisputed sovereign,
Gold – my chains and diadem.

Here, I stand barefooted and bareheaded,
Basest of all beggars, I:
Heavens flow with clouds and it is dawning,
I see nothing but the night.

Village imps will ever stone the beggar,
Dogs will bark him to his end;
Nowhere on this earth will he find refuge,
His head bereft of diadem.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


GIFT

I hold this day like sweet honeycomb, 
Do not mention the old wound, 
Do not say Memento Mori, 
Do not repeat it any more.

I thought I had lost forever 
That well and the meadows, 
And I longed to die, death – deluged 
Under autumn heavens.

Now small stones stir,
The meadow starts swaying all over – 
Explain, quiet breeze, why you suddenly
Provoke such green billowings – 

You can send Saint Johns fires, 
Down the mystery of ages; 
I fail to find the flower of a fern, 
Delving in darkness of leaves and branches.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


SMALL BEE

I must tell you how it happened, 
Believe it or do not –  
An episode to end housewarmings 
In granaries of song.

I say, the drowzy blossom closing, 
A bee was trapped within; 
Moonlight passed through clouds and darkness 
Till lawns lay diamonded.

Then spirits stalked to beg for baptism 
In the open halls of night, 
Their silent footfalls never troubled 
The clovers' sleep nor mine.

Astonishing – that one night's hostel, 
The thousand shimmered dreams –  
Who knows sleep's charm inside a blossom, 
Except the captive bee?

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


BIRDFLIGHTS

Quasi-sorcerer, I contemplate birdflights 
Row by row, all fall; 
Now, quickening in amber fields, their wings my gladness, 
They fly beyond recall.

Birds divine deep mysteries, they fathom 
Peril at a glance: 
Their wild cries and their swift flight tell me 
This autumn is the last.

No idle whim is mine to share the exodus, 
Birds my company, 
To a land where your word glows in the vision 
Of every olive tree.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


THE PAST

Virgin frost that stalked the road of falling blossoms
Like a bride among her flowers, on her way
Passed me by, nor did she touch me, until autumn
Came to gather blossoms that remained.

Distant echoes of the sun's hymn keep receding, 
Twigs of cloistered oleanders dry and numb, 
You arise from your sepulchre, garbed in darkness, 
Once again approaching your beloved son.

Who can say that we will have not much to talk of –  
There's old yearning in the heart that must be heard: 
When you speak, the oleanders will keep silent, 
Every leaf, alert, will listen to your words.

But I also have not little I must tell you; 
Only when you leave me, I'll return to mourn 
Multitudes of lights extinguished in the heavens, 
Myriads of meadow blossoms killed by fall.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


YESTERDAY

As I walked through fields, the smell of honey 
Startled me yesterday 
And it seemed the juices of sweet blossoms 
Coursed wildly through my veins.

Was it camomile or Capri gloxinia? 
Which – I do not know; 
I knew that more than one lonely wanderer 
Would be late in coming home.

Why must you hurry if no one is waiting
Beside the empty hive?
The bee has not returned from the meadow,
It is not so late tonight – 

Not so late that I couldn't manage
To scoop up, with a bit of care,
The bee swarms that, when rye was flowering,
Rose high into the air – 

They rose while the rye was flowering, 
They flew far and free 
From the corn, from the midday silence, 
Beyond fallowland and sea.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


PRICELESS

Had someone even warned me 
I would have disbelieved 
Such simple things –  
A sere leaf, 
A bit of earth, 
A cobweb in the stubblefield –  
Would one day 
Be so dear.

Pressed in the leaf, 
Lovers first word 
Fills fields with falls dirge, 
Drones grief 
Through my spirit; 
Though I grasp a handful of earth, 
I do not ask 
To whom does this dust belong.

Had someone warned me 
I would have disbelieved 
Two worlds would be made one 
With a thread, a gossamer web: 
Two autumns in stubblefields 
Under a heap of leaves, 
United in one dirge.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


THE STAG

Somewhere 
Along Kursiu Nerija, 
Wading, the stag will drink. 
Happy is he –  
In sandy wasteland, 
He has not known thirst.

Happy is he –  
For him, the Nemunas brings 
Fresh water to the sea; 
Of the same water 
From the same arable lands, 
We have drunk for ages.

Anon, anon, 
Revived by the sea, 
The stag will wade through snowdrifts 
That smother the village, 
His head raised high 
In the glow of sunrise.

Look, 
The vistas of resurrection, 
Life risen from smothering sands! 
Not forever 
Is he interred here 
At the old stag's feet.

Somewhere 
Along Kursiu Nerija, 
The revived stag will not know 
All our wells 
Are empty this summer, 
While the sea overflows.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


WEAVER

If you finish the weaving, lay out your linens 
To whiten under the birch; 
I will come home by them – twilight dimming –  
From the grave of my gloomy night.

Weave, if you must, all mournful remembrances, 
But crossweave your linens with dreams: 
How often in years of want and disaster 
Have you wakened in granaries?

Our river shimmers blue like a window, 
Heavy stones sigh in the swamps; 
I am destined for home from my purgatory 
Along a white linen path.

Charmed by its purity, spirits hasten
Trusting the home they must reach;
They seek a night's lodging like little candles
Along meadow, wood-edge and marsh.

In my grief for your sad eyes be a transgression,
I'll complete my purgation at home –
There, a sorrowing September waits for me
With juniper, birch, and stone.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


SKYLARK

I know you raised Lazarus
From the dead –
And his wailing sisters
Were quieted;
Why do the seawaves moan,
Why do my sisters protest
There is no resurrection?

Does it matter that sea-edge stones, 
In the rush of tides, 
Chortle as my tears fall 
On burning sand?

I shall lift the song of doom 
Like the coffin lid of pain-ripe autumn 
From dead springtime, 
I shall welcome back the skylark 
To my fatherland's fields, 
Its voice triumphant in the resurrection 
Of each silent grain of earth.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


APARTMENT

You little care that winds will dissipate 
This bloody foam across the seas; 
You are safe in your apartment 
As a bug in yellow amber is.

Do not reckon stones along the sea-edge 
Will never sweat again with blood; 
Nine-headed, eying all the world, the dragon 
Awaits the hour for his lunge – 

It is not too late to break the shackles 
And cut the dragon down to dust; 
Thought and spirit free of rigor mortis, 
Our very stones still pray for us.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


DIALOGUE

We talk together
As if from two planets,
One south,
One north;
We speak
Of cursed todays
And blessed tomorrows,
We do not understand each other.

You tell me: 
Look, what a clear dawn 
Brightens the horizon 
Of our fatherland's gloomy depths. 
I say to you: 
You dream! This is no dawn 
But a glow 
Signaling new flames will consume us.

You protest: 
Enough of your theories –  
Already we cannot see the full moon 
Through our tears. 
I reassure you: 
Tonight we wash the full moon 
With tears 
That others tomorrow 
Might see more clearly.

We talk together 
As if from two planets –  
All night we sit side by side 
Before the same fire. 
Tell me: 
What separates the heavens 
Of the north and south 
To fork such lightning in your eyes?

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


SEA-DREAM

Were this boundless ocean frozen, 
I'd run home along the ice, 
Forgetful even of this seagull 
That keens its loneliness and mine.

The journey would take but a moment, 
A moment and I cross the sea 
Which plunderers of my father's ploughing 
Have raised between my home and me.

I'd run to see if trees have frozen 
Wrapped in hoar-frost woven sheets, 
And if the poplar that prayed for me 
Trembles still at her destiny.

Like her own true son she'd greet me;
Her linen sheets my bed at last, 
She'd tell me who chained up the ocean 
And locked its hands with manacles.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


WINDSHELTER

These sunny tropic orchards flourish 
Unearthly, their colors 
Unearthly their blossoms –  
But what of that? 
Here, not a tree 
In a stormy night 
Will shield me from the wind.

I shall find no windshelter 
Safer than the refuge 
Of your shrine, 
Its roof 
More than roof – heaven
Enclosing 
Earth's fields, rivers, byways.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


WITH NOTHING

They deplore
They have lost everything again;
I am glad
I have found nothing yet,
Except a bit of amber
Beside the Baltic.

But even it 
Must turn to smoke: 
Sunset
Firing up like a censer; 
I shall throw in my amber, 
It will flame up –  
Centuries will burn.

Then everyone will share, 
A spark – for each; 
In every window a light will glow, 
My window will be dark: 
My flame 
I give to you.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


VISION

I saw farflung mountains risen 
From abysmal darknesses, like prisms; 
Only you, Lord, witnessed 
Joy break out in birds and beasts.

I saw a ray of light in crystal broken 
To strew the mountains with seven hues, 
While May, the cuckoo month in a green toga, 
Saw eagles spread their wings into the sun.

Each day they shall descend on snowy summits 
To rest like regal conquerors; 
What is it to them if valley rivers 
Cannot sleep, or the clouds descend in tears?

So, too, the hoary years will be like crystals – 
And life, a broken shaft of light – while we,
Wanderers in alien lands with eagles,
Encompass mountain miracles.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis

 
COMPLETION

Just one step more 
Through flaming water lilies 
To the grand finale. 
A short stride only, 
A light leap over 
The last blossom heaps 
Of night's embers –  
I shall rest my forehead, 
Press my palms 
On heaven's sunset, 
Like the Jew his sorrow 
On the wailing wall.

Nor will day, forsaken, 
Follow with her shadow, 
Nor recall me 
From that last journey: 
Who strays so far 
Knows no recall 
To silent pastures 
And nightwatch idylls; 
The foot among lilies 
Treads without an echo 
From the night's mute wall.

Then one last word
Through sunset embers,
Through hot star-swarms,
A single word, no other –
A solitary signal
To heaven, earth, and waters	
My feet have not yet trodden – 
Flames will meet the darkness,
The wall between night and day
Will crumble – 
And my last night,
Like Jericho, fall.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


NIGHT OF VIGIL

Fallen on field clumps at your feet, 
I do not grieve 
For the long night spent in vigil 
Beneath living crosses; 
Now the depths of the closed casket 
Will not be hard, 
Nor will the fiddling of grasshoppers 
Stir me to melancholy.

My bones skilled in resting
On hard clumps,
My heart composed
By the long night's vigil,
You will lead my sun with your glance
Beyond the dunehills
While grasshoppers fiddle the finale
Of their march down the fields.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


AUTUMN

I will remember that autumn –
The epileptic maple,
Fallen on the roadside,
Shuddering in agony;
My world died
In the maple's first convulsion –
Lord, the last
Of your lea butterflies
Died too.

I scorned that autumn,
Scoffed at its power;
It wreaks vengeance,
Merciless:
Birds hasten in hordes
Each year to funerals –
I am buried,
The lea butterflies
And wayside maples
Rigid –
Each year, birds swarm
To bind up empty spaces
With black wreathes.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


CROSSROAD

Why do you stop me on this crossroad,
Why hold out your hand too soon?
Here, every blossom rises to sunlight,
The lark seeks heaven with song.

Let me but offer the birds my thanksgiving
While blood still flows in my veins;
Why must you stop me on this crossroad
To lift the burdens I bear?

I must say adieu to the ocean billow,
In my hands, hold fast these wet stones –
Why do you lead me away so quickly
On a path of spring I don't know?

Translated by Demie Jonaitis

Leonardas Andriekus, priest, poet, and editor, was born in a village of Barstyčiai near the city of Mažeikiai in northwestern Lithuania. After entering the Franciscan Order in 1935 he studied theology in Austria and Italy, from 1937 to 1941. He was ordained a priest in Milan in 1940 and in 1945 earned his doctorate in Canon Law from Antonianum University in Rome. While in Italy, Father Andriekus ministered to the needs of Lithuanians stranded in Reggio Emilia refugee camps. He came to the United States in 1946, became involved in the daily activities of the Franciscan Order, and during 1964-1969 served as the Provincial Superior of Lithuanian Franciscans in the U.S. and Canada. He was Chairman of the emigre Lithuanian Writers' Association in 1970-1980 and an editor of cultural magazine Echoes. Leonardas Andriekus has published five volumes of poetry.