THE OAK TREES

They come: a large angry crowd.
Their heavy tops sway slowly,
And like distant thunder, like drums
Echoes their strange skin-shivering song:

– we carry the heavens –
– we carry the bloody heavens –
– we carry the dead heavens –
– we bring the night.

Their large dark hands,
Fingers twisted by wounds,
Hold a stiffened cloud:
Like a great black coffin.

They come. They carry the sunset.
The large angry crowd sways slowly.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



THE PROFLIGATE SONS

And late one evening we came to the city's great gate.
Guards shined the bloody flames of lanterns in our faces.
We listened quietly, with pounding hearts, to the painful
Curses; tattered, soaked with the autumn rains...

Into the city of our birth, carried through the years in our hearts.
Prostrate, we caressed the cobbled streets, kissed each stone,
And swooned in the abundance of the lullaby's ringing words:
We greedily drank them from the lips of passers-by...
With large, amazement-filled eyes, children stood in the street...

Until midnight... Oh, those night rains and the ringing
Of the tower's copper clocks drip into the heart –
My homeland's yellow honey! It flows through the lips,
Through the thirsty eyes... Lord, how good it is to weep the tears
                                              of the birth-clouds!
How good to sleep on the floor of one's birth!

Someone laughing loudly walks past us. Blows out the lights.
A pale streetwalker moans and collapses beside us.
We get up. We walk, quiet and mute. Our wooden shoes
Echo like a dry cough down the dark crossroads.
The wind sways our empty rain-soaked hands.

In the distance beat the foaming ocean's muffled drums...
Later we ladled the salty water in our sweaty helmets.
And in the ocean sands – as if in graves – we slept beneath 
                                           the lidded boats:
With vagrant dogs and crumbled yellow amber stars.

And we clasped them with petrifying palms
To breasts tattooed with pierced hearts and sailboats...
And we did not wake in the morning, and never wakened in the
                shifting sands of the seatowns of our birth.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



MORS ATOMICA

We are but animals on a deserted island.
Beasts who could not fit into Noah's ark, driven
by invisible arrows and spears.
No one sent a boat to save us.
No one wrote in fiery letters on the clouds.

We wait submissively for the final night
of pitiless blue swords. All the ships,
with panic sails raised, pass us by.
There are no birds. Wind. The island wellsprings
went dry. The bread trees are fruitless.

We feel the cold and salty sand with our lips.
The nearness of the eyes and hair of those collapsed near us,
their harsh breathing, rhythmically chopping eternity
into the present's small seconds. Silence
and the final wave which washes our feet.

We are the beasts the Scriptures do not mention. Driven
by the arrows and spears of apocalypse
into the deserted, empty coral island.
No one sent a boat to save us.
Water did not wash our names from the shifting sands.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



LATERNA OBSCURA

Together we trace the child's face in the first snow.
Beneath wild raspberry branches my sister rocks her doll.
Last night workmen spread light snow on the frozen ground
and now tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva.
The newborn snow is light as my sister's hair.

Through the cowering empty Samogitian town
the Cossacks ride, chopping the white mute moonlight
with their naked swords.

We trace our brother's face in the first snow.
The guard's epileptic daughter crumbles dry bread
into the coffin hole. Snow drifts over the peasant woman's
wax face and her plaited paper pillow.
Through the snowstorm echo the hoarse hymn and breathless bells.

Through the soundless sleeping white Samogitian town
fly the Cossacks, chopping the blue winter moonlight
that shimmers in the trees with their long whips.

No one kissed you goodnight. No one wept with you
for your dead mother. No one came to bury your hanged father.
Your land was empty and naked. Your earth, a peasant's palm.
No one let you into the kingdom – grey garments fluttered
like long-forgotten funeral flags. Plague linens.

Through the tattered Samogitian town fly the Cossacks,
carrying the chopped blue winter moonlight
on their long lances.

On a bright Sunday morning in the radiant land
workmen tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva.
Deep beneath the ice the river flows slowly to the sea.
Under the raspberry branches sleeps my sister's snow-dusted doll.
Together we trace my sleeping brother's face in the blue snow.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



TERRA INCOGNITA

In the land of blue snow there are no trees:
only the shadows of trees and the names of trees
written by a somber hermit in the writing of the blind.

In the hall of mirrors not a single person is left:
only profiles cut out by the cutter of Tilsit fair,
and silhouettes traced on the dusty glass by the fingers
of the dead violinist late in the evening of All Souls.

In the valley of the ebbing rivers there is no birthplace:
only long rows of barracks, wooden sphinxes
with their sooty heads on their paws, dreaming
of flags, summer, sun and sand.

In the land of blue snow only names remain,
lines and drawings and letters remain on ashes.
In the land of blue snow there is no land.

Translated by Aldona and Robert Page



FRAGMENT OF CHILDHOOD

Strings of lifeless locomotives. Rusty rails in the fog.
In the workyard tar-spattered dandelions sway in the wind.
Small dirty hands gather them and take them home.
Behind smoky basement windows an old woman smiles in her sleep.

Weeping women carry baskets of bleeding fruit
and cringe when the trains scream. Crowds of poplars
have gathered in the gully to bury the dead sun.
I listen to their dirge while awaiting father's return:

His red lantern swings far off in the night.
Heavy familiar steps! With a coarse sweaty hand
he strokes my hair... Beyond the river soldiers sing...
In the flaming doorway mother waits for us.
Quietly crackling, the night burns in the heart.

Translated by Aldona and Robert Page



TO MY BROTHER

Tonight I can feel – he leaves his house:
– the autumn rainstorm beats against the panes –
he staggers in the streets, covering his face with his arms
as he weeps. I know. And I say to him:

When I write about trees that threaten the sky,
about a prophet whom the crowd has spurned, –
I speak to you, for you are my truest brother,
I speak to you so that you will not stumble
on the wet stones, so you will raise your sad head,
because you must live, my brother – you!

And you know: when in the attic of a dark house
at midnight – like a huge wound on the night –
a window blazes – there has come,
to one man, your brother – the same suffering

which torments you at night like a black dream,
scorches you, but for which you cannot find the words;
and he, he searches for them on this night,
among these sighs of silence and in the tumult
of the storm's lament, in the sobbing of rain and branches;
and you would want to caress this man's
tired hands: he writes your words.

I speak to you. My silent brother.
When you are weeping I weep with you.
When I say: I am like a tree – solitary, proud –
then you can say: I am lonely and proud like my brother.

Translated by Aldona and Robert Page




FIVE UNWRITTEN LETTERS

First letter:

ADELAIDE

You have come alone. The thick fog of Adelaide Harbor
smells of tar and poppies. The peculiar yellow sun
of an unfamiliar spring burns: an orange ball
bobbing in a wide muddy pool of sky.

You waded ashore, dreaming of black harbor waters,
like Gulliver towing after you
little crystal boats. Over the slow flowing Torrens
the vibrating line of a bridge is piercing the night.

In the old German town (remember?) those plane trees entrusted
to you now rustle by another bridge over a shallow river:
in the morning children catch silver trout in their hands,
leaves whisper on the shore, winds play in the square.

The cathedral clock chimes the hour of ruins.
White moonlight crumbles. In the shadow of heavy counterforces,
where an Angel blows the trumpet of Judgement,
our footsteps stayed and echo. In Adelaide, you

dream in wintertime of a light bark boat in the snow.
In the jabber of parrots you search for a lost gray bird.
Bridges. The brick gate is red. The sun revolves
as an orange sphere in your dream. In Adelaide.


Second letter:

HONG KONG

The newborn moon blooms in the cherry orchard.
In Hong Kong.
Yellow and round, like a copper plate.
Like a gong.
My little sister with almond eyes, porcelain fingers,
watches how silk weavers indifferently die
on the fragile bridge railings in Hong Kong.

Rye whiskey is sweet. Shadows on thin silk
waver like hollow reeds in a faint aquarelle.
The bread of famine sticks in the throat.
Shadows wander from gray suburbs
through the marijuana smoke of the cafe like puppets.

And the moon blooms yellow in the desert. In the harbor.
In Hong Kong.
Gleaming and round, like a cooper plate.
Like a gong.
My sister forgot a thousand years ago
that she knows how to laugh and cry. On the pond's surface
under the fragile bridge railings in Hong Kong,
Gioconda looks up at me with almond eyes.


Third letter:

GOLD COAST

Efua,
lakes of white moon milk ripple
in your dream. Supple
in your black skin, like the sacred
Modder Forest in the evening. Efua, your young
heart is like the thumping of your bare and drunken
feet, the drums' tom-tom and the rhythmical harvest song.

Efua, in your dream the orange sun has ripened,
naked bride of the morning and stone of innocence.
The wrists of your hands are light, like the hollow
bones of birds. Like a reed in the wind – your waist.

The golden hair of corn sighs in your dream.
A river of copper water boils. The palm tree's hands
beat the lazy wind in the shadow. You hold
your bow and arrow raised high. Efua, your winding path

is followed by the cunning eye of the tiger. But you
will overcome the beast and the dark foliage, where
the odd dreams of monkeys dangle and the wind's cool knives hang
after slicing a soft cloud. Warm lakes
of moon milk are steaming in your dream.
Efua, in your long, long dream.


Fourth letter:

BUDAPEST BALLAD

Imre, was it you who stood
(bareheaded in a student's woolen coat with child's eyes)
on the steps of a poet's monument that extraordinary October evening
and shouted into the dead silence above the endless sea of heads,
hoarse from your country's deserts and the tepid Danube wind
and the beating of your young blood:
"Arise Hungarians, your fatherland calls you!
The time has come! Now or never!
In the name of the God of all Hungarians, we swear, we swear
never again to be slaves!"
Was it you, Imre, that then repeated with the throng
and the earth, and the wind, and the water, this bitter oath of freedom?
        ....................................
        ....................................
Imre, was it you who wrote
(in blood – what pathos! – in your young, warm blood)
with bullet-pierced hand numbed by the first autumn frost,
in straight and red letters on the white bricks of the pier,
so all could see: the snoopers, cowards, cohorts, and enemies,
in tall letters, the clotted scream: Death to the oppressors!
My land shall live forever!
        ....................................
        ....................................
Imre, was it you who covered
with your coarse woolen coat (and the flag, from which your friend's
hand had cut out – like an abscess – the shameful star of slavery)
the haggard, gaunt body, your sister's loose yellow hair,
and laid words on the street pavement, torn up
by tank treads:
Sleep peacefully, little girl of Budapest,
your death was not in vain...
        ....................................
        ....................................
Imre, is it you who have written
on a narrow paper ribbon
those unforgettable sentences to us
from that night beyond, from that town convulsed in death
(while despair's black cannonade thunders... the Danube glitters
under empty bridges... and bayonets... narrow Mongolian eyes...
the barbarian is at the city gates...),
Imre, did you write to us
from that last, terrible, immortal night:
"God, save Hungary.
God, save our souls.
Farewell, companions..."?


Fifth letter:

LOS ANGELES

On the ocean shore barefoot angels are dancing.
Brass throats of trumpets scream blue sorrow.
Drunken poets recite in cafes – sharp shadows
of legendary birds slash with thin wings
the raucous curtain of smoke – through it
girls with loose hair covering their faces look out
at the quiet, apathetic, flat, mirror-like sea...

On hot asphalt barefoot angels are dancing.
Jungle drums throb the rhythm of wild blood.
Black poets sing midday, blazing day:
from ashen palm trees flocks of birds spill
over the dancing, screaming, raving city...
The eye of the burnt out sun smolders in the carnival flag.
On the harbor pier barefoot angels are dancing.

In cafes and taverns barefoot angels are dancing.
Black angels. White angels. Blue angels.
The poets have resurrected from the smoke a green coral island
and the homeland of the albatross. Brass jazz trumpets
tear at palm tree branches and crack the stone of skyscrapers.
Stained glass windows crumble and shop windows split.
Artificial moons flee through starless space.

On stars and broken glass barefoot angels are dancing.

Translated by Aldona and Robert Page



PASTORAL

The railroader's sons strum their guitars in the shade:
Their sensitive fingers pluck a sad old tune.
Silver planes zoom through quiet space.

The harsh hammering of the scythe clangs across the lake.

Smoke and dust suffocate the orchard; the trees droop.
Barefoot children build sandcastles and sing sweet tunes
In the parching sun on the tarstained beach.

The harsh hammering of the scythe clangs across the lake.

The rails and the windows glitter in the noon sun.
Like tiny minnows, the silver planes flash in the sky.
The apathetic old guitars thrum in the children's laughter.

The harsh hammering of the scythe clangs loudly here, by the hedge.

Translated by Jean Reavey



SPRING

The ice has gone.
Behind the windscreen
you can now grasp
a handful
of wind
like a small helpless bird
dropped from the nest
which searches
only for the warmth
of your hands
and blood.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys



TABULA RASA

The silence of falling snow surpasses words:  a bluebird
flying – chalk islands lost in mist.  The summit of Ararat
frozen in winds and clouds.  Stalactites, pointed
like icicles.  A shroud of blanched linen on the dead face.
The look in your eyes.  In your brother's eyes.

An angel has etched a face on the white-washed wall of a church
where gaze the vineyards of Vevey, in the blinding flutter of sails,
at the green lake of Geneva.  The angel has graven your eyes
with transparent water from the river of my Aukstaitija.
And covered your shoulders with the silence of falling snow.

Across your hovel passed the Master's shining feet.  You followed.
Oars, nets, boat, you abandoned.  Bread, fish, and wine multiplied –
but not for you.  At the wedding of Canna, in the vineyards of Vevey,
in the sands of my river, my Musa, you were nourished –
by the pale bird, the island – snow, shroud, and miracle.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis



MEMORIES OF A DISTANT NIGHT

In the evening at my grandmother's farm
The frightened fields appear in flashes of distant lightening.
The swaying trees pray.  A long menacing thundering
rolls across the gray and angry sky.
Behind the window a rain-washed face peers at me.
A white book is open under my hands.
The book is white, blank – my childhood diary.
My grandmother's barefoot steps are silent, approaching,
departing...yellow lamplight like candle wax.
Father far.  No mother.  Only silence.

The trees on the faint horizon run and run.
Outside the rain pours and pours and pours.
Grandmother's hand is light like a bird on my head.
The book of childhood is white like mid-day snow.
My face sadly peers through the window at me.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis



SPRINGTIMES

Restless forests keep muttering in sleep.
Hot heavy breathing makes the windmill wings tremble.
The eyes of a blue moon shine in the gloom.

At night, a shrill savage laughter resounds throughout the woods.
Clouds bend and sway the pinetops.
Then the wakened waters pounce and are swallowed in gorges.

Rivers embracing the shattered ice carry it off to sea.
Stifling reverberations of thunder echo along the horizon.
A long lightning flare lifts the sky open.

The muddy fields are covered in a morning rain.
People stand bareheaded on the waking earth.
Far off, with night outdistanced, the forests heave an easy sigh.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis



JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

The foreigner placed his hand on your shoulder,
late one cool evening, in a tavern of the old harbortown.
Yellow sand flowed with the wine from one bowl
into another, glassy one, in a thin, trickling stream.

A drunk was in sobs, resting his blue palms
on a dirty counter, the jittery light from a commercial
jogging across his moist face, when the tall stranger
touched his white hand to my tired friend's shoulder.

Long before Poe or Villon, there were poets dying in bars,
dizzy from green absinthe or cheap wine,
from the glow of harbor lights and the cries of boats
shoving off from a black wharf for sunnier journeys.

Their dreams had young stallions frisking in boundless pastures,
spotted trout leaping in childhood's crystal waterfall
to throng the river upstream and die there, pale young boys
gathering the shadows of slow-moving clouds from warm sand.

The stranger has placed his hand on your shoulder.
Scales of shadows tremble in painful balance.
The stream of sand quickens and sinks in a glass cone.
Only one blind alley leads out onto the empty shore.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Poet, literary translator, critic of literature and art, participant of Kazys Bradūnas' "Žemė" (Earth) literary movement, Henrikas Nagys was born in the lowland region of Mažeikiai in northwestern Lithuania. In 1940 he began to study architecture, but soon switched to the study of Lithuanian and German at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. Having fled abroad after the second Soviet occupation of Lithuania, he completed his undergraduate studies at Freiburg University in Germany. Nagys received his doctorate from Innsbruck University in Austria for his dissertation on the poetry of Georg Trakl. He taught German in the School of Applied Arts in Freiburg from 1947 to 1948. After emigrating to Canada Nagys lived in Montreal where he taught literature at the University of Montreal, edited various émigré journals, and conducted seminars on Lithuanian language and literature, and published six collections of poetry with the émigré presses. Nagys translated German, American, and Latvian poetry into Lithuanian. In addition, he was a well-known critic and publicist of Lithuanian literature, a contributor to numerous newspapers and literary journals. The principal ideas raised in Nagys' poetry are: the human struggle with the gray every-day existence, the difficult human loneliness, the tragedy of death and transitoriness, promethean protest, the heroic spirit, the quest for illusory ideal, and the torturous longing for perfect love. With powerful symbols and poetic paraboles Nagys wrote about the insufficiency of earthly reality and the gnawing thirst for a more perfect reality.