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.

M. MARTINAITIS

The western light dims ... up high,
but through a window,
as if looking into the spirit
huge eyes watch . . .
faceless.

On the roads people move,
dark, burned out souls,
across their faces slips a stillness
like the shadow of the moon.

From word ... to word
time stretches without end,
and staring into eternity
the frozen eyes of a madman.

translated by Birutė Bilkštys-Richardson

AT THE DAUGAVA

1.

Skies as though poured of tin;
only the air above the river shivers delicately.
The dewy green linden heads
take my heart with them into fragrance.
Time is already around the eleventh hour:
into every lamp a glowing rose falls.
In the harbor, like a giant bumblebee,
a steamer begins to drone, and it slides off to the sea.

2.

I stand on the shore of the Daugava
among winds and heavy loads
that ships will soon carry off.
The sun climbs a mast like a boy
dressed in a glowing, coarse shirt;
and among the pebbles frost lies like rice.