أدوارداس ميجيلايتيس

Near a rotted old stump Which the spring water washes A n old helmet rusts, gaunt, And upon it, audacious, Like a bold mountaineer Climbs a wormlet. Nearby A small bird for a nest Scans the beach with its eye. The last ice-splinters melt And are turned into springs. But what flower in the grass To the old helmet clings? From beneath its steel rim Peers a frail dandelion. Stroke its head with your hand - It’s alive - undying... 1946

What's the sky? What are stars? Aren't they simply blue eyes? What's the moon? Not an eyebrow bent like a bow? Not your features which in my poem arise Drawn in space, then left in the heavens to glow? I'm drawing in space Your ephemeral face Out of stars, out of air - with the sunset's hues, With the nightingale's trills - a parody on A cry-baby poet deep in the blues. I draw Your ephemeral face out of nothing, Out of space, out of time, out of birds' sparkling ways, Out of sounds, out of lightning, rain, wind and snowflakes And the most abstract dots in the galaxies' maze. I can feel Your soft skin drawn with paints out of air, My eye's caught by the blue of your glance. My picture smells of your scent - the scent Of lilac dancing a moonlight dance. I have put up the portrait Here, in my attic And beg it to stay, like a dream growing faint. No, those are not poets who don't rob the heavens, No painters who don't mix the stars in their paint. What's the sky If the stars are your eyes and the moon - your eyebrow, The sunset - your lips floating vision-like by. Your enormous, enormous ephemeral portrait Drawn out of nothing in space Is my sky! 1962



1.

Squeezed, like the words in sonnets, in its frame of banks,
obeying canons, flows the river's epic water, 
like the events in ageless poems, like the mast 
of the canoe that used to carry Hiawatha, 
and like the green tobacco smoke curled by the wind, 
that rose in midday quiet from his pipe of peace; 
slow as Columbus' Santa Maria once 
sailed, swaying, in the medieval breeze. 
Then, suddenly, the cliff-edge... Like an army 
driven in human streams to fratricidal war, 
it drops sheer into the abyss and loudly 
the martial trumpets of the Niagara roar.


2.

But now away with harmony, 
away with canons -  
no pen could stand the rhythm of the water. 
Away with rhymes, 
they're quite unnecessary here, 
for in the noise and tumult of the torrent 
they won't reach even the most sensitive of ears. 
Here rhymes must be as deafening as thunder 
or, at the least, as artillery salvoes, 
for here wild water legions are at war. 
Away with logic, too, 
for here illogicality prevails 
and nothing's left of geometric rules.

Force takes the upper hand here. 
Brutality comes tearing to the surface, 
trampling on weaklings with its feet. 
Here dominates a wild erupting mass, 
a civil war of water rages here.

Here black and white 
and red and yellow water-races mix,
and the democracy of Nature triumphs. 
Water and words
are white and black and red and yellow democrats 
which break up the whole framework of old canons, 
break up eternal and harmonious dictatorships, 
creating monumental chaos.

Here you will never hear the shepherd's pipe. 
Here drums keep rattling and brass bugles blaze. 
But over all this hell hangs in the air 
the colourful harmony of the sky -  
a rainbow 
which crowns the silver head of old Walt Whitman, 
the king of chaos, the philosopher and satyr, 
while from his snowy beard like crumbs of bread 
pour sonorous words: 
"And mind a word of the modern - 
the word En Masse."

I tell Walt Whitman: 
a single word, like an individual, loses sense, 
for it can never win in any battle. 
Today the winners will be words en masse -  
armies of words, brigades of wordy and legions, 
word movements, revolutions and uprisings, 
and there will come about a new society of words, words-democrats, 
a democratically organised new system. 
(I ask you not to mix up different notions: 
the great sun of democracy which Whitman sang 
is setting on this continent. Today it rises 
over the Old World from the continent of socialism.) 
This waterfall of words 
no longer can be squeezed 
into the confines of iambics, dactyls and the rest, 
for there are far too many words - entire word-masses, 
and to control them other laws and systems are required. 
Their rhymes originate from river floodwaters, 
from gusts of wind and the low roar of lathes 
and thunderpeals. 
Their rhythm is asymmetry, 
the pulsation of disorder, 
which dominate in Nature.
But from this chaos will emerge 
an exquisite chaotic harmony.

And words will take their colour from all human races, 
from earth, sea-water, grass and steel. 
And over the chaotic water-mass of the Niagara 
shines the white tousled head of old Walt Whitman, 
great Pan of poetry.


3.

I smooth down my poem like a darling-doll; 
I twine its pigtails of rhyme, 
and let it walk off looking neat and fine, 
smoothed down like my own little daughter's poll, 
all spick and span - a real darling-doll.

But at times like a young colt it starts to buck, 
and all of a sudden it goes astray, 
and then the poetry runs amuck, 
so that even the great Alexander Blok 
couldn't have stopped its unruly play.

Is there sense, though, in squeezing it into tight canons, 
into their narrow Procrustean bed, 
if metaphors stick out and lines defy scanning, 
if the image, sword bared, wants to challenge the canon 
to fight until one of them falls down dead?

Should the rhythmic amplitude be so tightened? 
Must we always follow the common practice 
and spin like other bards - God almighty! -  
still continue to spin, by all novelty frightened, 
around the iambo-trochaic axis?

Now listen, do rivers resort to iambic? 
And are iambics employed by the breeze? 
Now listen, does anything through the cosmos ambling 
sound even a bit like our earthly iambic 
or like our trochee - do tell me, please!

Then why must we narrow the scale of a poem? 
Let's give it, our poem, complete liberty. 
Yet I smooth it, if need be, my poem: get goin’!
I comb it, all spick and span: now we'll show 'em! 
But in fact, poem-dollikins aren't for me!


4.

I've returned to my banks, you'll say... 
Yes, I have! 
Vortices, waterfall 
make up this epoch.

But returning out of a waterfall 
isn't the same as returning 
to the maximum speed of the Santa Maria, 
or to Hiawatha's canoe, 
or the curling smoke of his pipe of peace.

Here the return 
is like that of a horse leaping out of battle, 
all its muscles nervously twitching. 
In our case, the return is accompanied by 
reminiscences of the waterfall's vortex.

A river, jumping down off a cliff 
flows slower, but does not return. 
And so we have two hoary poles standing 
on opposite sides of the river: 
gray-haired, blind Homer 
and gray-haired Walt Whitman.

One in his laurel leaves, 
the other in leaves of grass -  
thus, both in green wreaths, 
across the Niagara extending 
handy to each other.

1962

Have you seen a huge tree ride the wind in a storm? Flinging all its green branches like wings to the skies, Yet its breast in the fight with the wind holding firm, Like a bird soaring over the puddles it flies... It withstands all the lightning and soaks up the rain... Then the moisture like sweat trickles down to the soil From its rough rugged branches subdued by the strain Like a man's drooping hands when exhausted from toil. Soon those gnarled weary branches regain their old strength, And the tree starts to rustle again, by and by, Look, it rises and spreads its green arms at full length, For it knows while it's working its sap will not dry. Though it had to withstand the wind's rages and rain, Now dispersing the clouds like black ravens it clings To the sky, to the sun the huge tree soars again On its own leafy branches like feathery wings... Have you seen such a tree in its challenging flight? Do its boughs not remind you of these hands, my own, When they rise against storm blast and thunder to fight? It's a hardworking, free pair of hands that I own... My two hands worship freedom. They crave for its balm When long furrows they turn and sow seed in the loam. They enjoy being free to hold bread in their palm And to bear every day a fresh loaf of it home. My own hands, like those branches and fluttering sprays, Shield a bird from deep snowdrifts and piercing winds... My own hands greet the sun when at dawn with its rays Like a girl to a man's well-knit body it clings... My own hands, I am saying... But are they just mine? Can I claim they belong but, to me? They are dust of a mountain, no matter how fine, Or two drops in the infinite sea... Nonetheless, tiny drops make the sum of an ocean, And a mountain is simply a heap of fine sand... So to keep this magnificent world in motion There must be a call for my working hands... My two hands may belong to the plough in the field, To the scythe mowing grass and the saw cutting lumber, To the loom weaving cloth and the hammer I wield, To the far-ranging rocket, an atom-age wonder... My two hands may be fitted for kneading crisp dough Or for saving a tree from hard frost, They can carry the flag in a clash with a foe And sustain my own friend who is lost. My two hands are needed to water a flower And to save its fine blooms from becoming dry, To let free a caged bird is within their power Ant to lift you, my son, to the sun in the sky! Now and then hands are needed for brushing a tear From my own and a stranger's cheek... They are needed to give kindly warning, good cheer To a baby whose own hands are weak... Hands are needed for stroking your loved one's soft hair And for striking the foe who comes trampling your land... They enfold a good man for whose friendship you care, And in greeting you offer your hand... Just two hands I possess... Though I had seven score I should still feel myself to be nought. I despise metal gold, but like gold I adore Human hands and the things they have wrought. Just two hands I posses... Take them, Earth, in return For your harvests, the fruit of your lands... Take these hands - they are muscular hands, broad and firm - They belong to you. Come, take my hands...

The brown fragments of bone underfoot here lying - like remains of old bullets corroded by rust - were once two tiny feet that went leaping and flying down the path after butterflies, raising grey dust; they were two little hands which were gently caressing their mother's warm shoulders and velvety breast; they were two wrinkled hands which were soothingly blessing their small children to wish them a good night's rest. And the colourless ashes by breezes here scattered were eyes that once sparkled or glared distrust, were lips that once smiled, craved for kisses and chattered, and suppressed bitter sufferings too... This grey dust hides the hearts that were grieving, rejoicing and seething, and the brains that were throbbing and burning with strife, facing desperate plight, they were twisting and wreathing like the letters a child shapes on first writing "life"... And the hair that now lies in a pile over there was a cascade of curls; in a leisurely hour it would often be fondled and plaited with care, maybe somebody kissed it and set there a flower... All the tremors of hearts when they knew joy or sorrow, gloomy eyes, smiling lips, all good cheer and blame have been turned into ashes... These people were swallowed in the ovens of death by a merciless flame... ...Look, from out of blue heaven a bird downward dashes... Its grey wing in the sunshine surprisingly glows as it swoops low above the barbed wire and the ashes to alight by a blood-red late-flowering rose... I am still overwhelmed by the pain I am feeling and a tear has lodged somewhere deep in my breast, like a shell splinter deep in a wound never healing that is fated to torture and give me no rest... I cannot tear my gaze from the faraway flashes when the cloudy horizon I anxiously scan and I cry, as I clutch a small handful of ashes: Stop now, once and for all, killing man!.. Oswjecim (Auschwitz)

The ocean!.. As old as our world is this ocean, even the poems about it are old, yet it's always in motion, perpetual motion, and I feel like an island cast in its mould. I admit we repeat ourselves, we are banal, perhaps we are infantile after all, but why not compare human life to the sea? If nations and people are likened to islands, why then not be drawn to the sea? Poets vowed to us: "Life is a limitless ocean", but bathed in the puddles in their own tears. Thus we expose the misleading notion of sailing alone across this ocean and leaving behind our fears... What a lovable element! Watching its breathtaking swell, even breasting its winds you've no wish to depart for the taste of its brine keeps you under a spell, and the hymn of its waves you still hear at heart as you do in a shell... Roll over, you ocean! You have never yet relished such freedom and ease... Though some ships in your depths lie in weeds without motion, newer vessels - your pride! - greet the breeze... Roll over, you billows of people! Roll over, you humankind ocean! What I am I don't know: a small boat or an island that's one solid piece, never mind, precious life, do not spare my breast, beat my heart like a rock with your waves without cease... I admire the towering humankind ocean, I rejoice in its waves flooding continents. Let some snobs treat with scorn all this artless notion, yet for me life - mankind - and the restless ocean is an image that never grows old, it outshines many others all seemingly novel and bold... Roll over, you sea full of life! Roll over, you billows of people! Look, with hands of poetic devotion we shall keep mother Earth in motion, perpetual motion... Translated by Lionginas Pazusis