LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 47, No. 4 - Winter 2001 Editor of this issue: M. Gražina Slavėnas ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 2001 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

IN A FORMER GHETTO ALLEY

VIOLETA PALČINSKAITĖ 
Translated by M. Gražina Slavėnas

In wind and sun, 
white wash hung out between the 
pale stone walls of a former ghetto alley 
resembles small white sails floating from 
the sea of the dead into the light of noon. 
      Perhaps you were born too late.

In the pine grove,
under a blanket of sand, bone cradles bone.
At a baby's head sleeps its last lullaby...
Only in nightmares rattle the unassembled shards.
And someone wakes up in horror
                                              and screams.

In a former ghetto alley, 
the morning dew evaporates under windowsills. 
For the hundredth time a grandmother tells 
her grandson the tale of the tailor and the 
stingy rich man. Perhaps it is still too soon for him 
     to know about those who were led away.

About the candle, yellow,
     bleeding in the scorching sand... 
Gently, gently, I will pick it up
          from the weeping ground 
toward the midday heat,
               into sun
                    and wind.

* * *

My mother is silent.
A bird sits on her shoulder.
The sand dunes
Brush against her Bible robe.

My mother's name
Bears the sign of fate.
My mother's face
Lies in the star-studded ground.

My mother's sky 
Is the color of lilac. 
My mother's hands 
Are above my head.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .