LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 26, No. 3 - Fall 1980 Editor of this issue: Birutė Cipliauskaitė ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1980 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

MARIE UNDER

ACCOUNTING

Leaning humbly against the earth, quieter than a shadow,
I am sitting in the withered grass, utterly alone.
The crest of the past dims in the distance,
the frost-bitten path awaits me in the dell.

Within the menace of time I am counting single moments
which fall into transcience like berries, one after another.
The day has turned its back on me.
It is evening. The time for accounting. Or is it the end-most
judgment?

Oh, listen to the cool rustle of the universe,
as if a stern angel were asking me:
what have you given for the sacrifice?

And feeling a joyous pain in my soul
I sense a praying answer glide to my lips:
Ask the one who baptized me with verse.

Prose translation from the Estonian by Aleksis Rannit