LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 10, No.2 - Summer 1964 Editor of this issue: Thomas Remeikis ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1964 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

www.lituanus.org

FAUSTAS KIRŠA

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 quasi 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 ravenges 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.

                                                 (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.