ROOM

How empty, how dismal, facing four everyday walls
To nurture clear thought for a crafty-faced world
Which expels from recall, like a cursed day laborer,
Your songs – your sacrifice structured for echoing.

O beloved room, kingdom of rot!
In every corner, flowers – mould's sketches...
Fragile etchings speckled with rusted nails –
Damp's tender song – rust for the dewy blossom.

Glance low – in quasy cauliflower clusters,
Rot's plenum – a spider repairs his cobweb;
He has gnawed small boots, gnashed multicolored socks;
Wider, he stretches his jaws till they snap.

Observe, do not shudder, a brick's edge protrudes
Stamped with a grin – with dewdappled lichen;
Everywhere scurry our tenants, the centipedes,
Their bare backs pushing up through the crevices.

Behold on the ceiling, on pale yellow wheels
Like a child's toys, move squadrons of rot,
Bejeweled, painted with lightwaves;
There dry the dustmotes, stricken by millions.

From ceiling down corners, their kin in multitudes
Garbed more glinting and steel-flecked
Swarm to attack my breast's hot heaving
And silence it with their clamor.

You, small gray mouse, my partner in destiny,
My consolation when the soul revenges the visage,
Musty – coated, you explore my possessions
And share of my crust, for this corner is ours.

On three square levels, we gnaw, we sing, we prepare
With lichen – thick garlands the feast for our country;
Since dust we'll become, like dust we heave –
But, Fatherland, yours be eternity's laurels.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis



GREENNESS

Such greenness, such joy surge over my earth
Deluged with springborn blossoms!
Agonies – lightened with the kindling of colors,
Vigor – fired with the victory on hilltops.

Hands though gnarled and backs bent crooked,
There's a health seeks labor like prayer.
A greeting – rumor of God – to the earth,
And gratitude – love's consummation.

Hills, valleys – flowered sanctuaries:
There, the Lord's face, bread, abundance,
There, deep glances fathom the flatlands,
There, still thoughts glow through despondence.

Rivulets, rivers, lakes and bogpits,
Sparkle with sunbeams and move.
So all things comfort man and accompany him,
And earth spins on along cosmic grooves.

Translated by Peter Tempest



IN THE MOUNTAINS HOW DELIGHTFUL

In the mountains how delightful
When a whispering breeze
Spreads a shawl to the horizon
Of grey clouds like these!

Through the valley flows our river,
Eddies whirl about.
Joyous play of sun and shadow
Year in and year out.

Gladdened by star candelabras
Hoisted in the sky,
I make up my mind to travel,
Like the breeze to fly.

Full of beauty and caresses
Is the world around,
Like the young heart that possesses
Love which knows no bound.

Translated by Peter Tempest



SPECK OF MIST

Such a yearning comes at sunset,
Earth's weight you more clearly sense:
Like the sullen mist, you shudder,
Bear and suffer pangs intense...

There are new bright spots, new glances,
New flames in the ashes grey...
You too, go as humbly crawling
As the mist, through hill and vale!

If – though but a speck – you glisten,
Singing shall your sorrows drown...
You shall read the palm the mist is
Lifting and its witchcraft crown!

Translated by Peter Tempest



THE WOODEN CHRIST

In his fathers' home, a farmer who's a hundred
Carves a wooden model Lord that works some wonders.

On the face of Jesus he inscribes his misery
When they sent his son to prison in Siberia.

He cuts deep, the wood dust drops, the god doll gazes –
Anguished god indeed, created by its maker.

He, to crucify himself his heart and torments,
Spears the side of God and spikes the palms and insteps.

Then he twists a crown of thorns to grave the forehead;
White the wood the old man gouges, goads and tortures.

With the hands at rest upon the knobby kneecaps,
Wooden Christ himself is born, alive, and painwracked.

Chips pile up to ease the heart, for Christ is risen,
Christ himself is risen from the old man's chisel.

Now the godwright glows, and now he sees the miracle:
Round the head of Christ are lightrays in a circle.

When he stripped the final splinter from the icon,
You could hear the lips of the creator speaking:

"God, I don't believe this piece of wood requires
Labor out of me to bring about a miracle.

"God, you wipe my tears dry, turn my pain to sweetness
Through your agony with both your temples bleeding.

"If you do perform them – miracles, I beg you:
Save the innocent, but punish persecutors!"

And, when he had borne the statue to the church, why
All the people of the land returned to virtue.

And, his lips against the wound of Jesus' passion,
He himself begged mercy for his youth's transgressions.

Translated by Theodore Melnechuk



THE TINY KINGDOM

With bugs, with butterflies,
With bees, ants, dragonflies, –
My youth withdrew into the fields
And waves with wings of mist.

Tightshut eyes see the suns
That roll across coarse earth
Where the days of my youth died
While waiting for new dawns.

With bugs, with butterflies,
With bees, ants, dragonflies, –
My youth withdrew into the fields
And waves with wings of mist.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



BEING ALONE

Whatever I sow stays hidden.
Seems I'm singing, though I don't know what
there's not enough of.
At times I'm buoyantly alive.
At times I'm wingless, legless,
poring over stones.
Yet that unending storm is one
both heart and mind feel.
So do all dreams.
Here though, you're alone, like the last leaf,
and there's no looking to see what the road up ahead is.
All you know is to move.
And what you want, you won't catch up with.
And will not listen, to what you do hear,
even while it charms you.
For you, it's one endless howling of winds,
with now a caress, now a summons,
in the earth's whirlwind.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



ECHOING ECHOES:
XXVIII

Not all stars have the same pull,
Not all thoughts wave to the sun,
Not many words have heart appeal
While I dream bygone love.

I still believe you'll show
Your kindest loving glance to me
And take on a sweet red glow,
And get me to find you flowers.

I'll pick the best one for you,
The subtlest scented blossom
That came to life at dawn,
That earth and heaven sing to.

Come as the fog, wrap me in shadow,
It's you my heart calls out to,
A song I made for you alone
Still echoing, still waiting.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Following a settled early childhood in the lake district of Zarasai, Faustas Kirša went through a far-flung sequence of secondary schools as distant as Moscow and Orel, securing in the process certification as a teacher from the Tsarist authorities. He taught briefly and by 1918, the year Lithuania proclaimed itself an independent republic, had published his first book of poems, along with an extended essay on a local philosopher-mystic, and numerous articles for various periodicals. After a second book of poems and some spirited contributions as writer and organizer to revive the theater and art scenes, he received a grant to resume formal studies at the University of Berlin, where from 1922 until 1925 he specialized in German literature and aesthetics, making time also to attend philosophy lectures at the Russian Academy there. On his return to Lithuania, he held important posts in cultural administration, lectured regularly, and also prepared several opera translations, among them Carmen and with Balys Sruoga La Traviata, that soon became standard in performance. At the close of World War II, he was obliged to move into Germany and spent the first postwar years in a refugee camp at Lübeck, where he was active in revitalizing émigré cultural life, work he managed to continue after relocating to the United States, though with a gradually diminishing vigor. He died in Boston. Kirša started with the first and still ranks among the best of the post-Symbolists who came into their own in that sweet but unsettling twenty-year interim of newfound independence. His poetry was sporadically arrived at, or so he claimed, yet it was vigorous and expert beyond the range of his intensely unique lyric meditations also to include didactic and satiric verse of verve and polish.