Belsevica’s obituary in previous issue
Latvian Feature
more poetry
Photo by Margita Gutmane
Vizma Belševica
GRATITUDE and Other Poems
What happened between us
In the moonlit confusion,
I gatheredtogether and pressed
Into the bell of a single snowdrop.
Isealed the petals with my lips
And placed it in the leaves of abook.
When I turn the pages, it opens once more
In its dustycemetery of words,
And rises up, confounding death,
To take theway it only knows.
The path is found, can you hear
The belledsnowdrop ring in my heart?
See how whitened I walk
And leaveprints of golden pollen,
But they do not see or know
the miserythat issues from my joy.
HAPPENSTANCE
I just happened to pass this way
By chance. Perhaps
The pathwill recall
Our footfalls. Stepping together.
Perhaps theborders of wild chervil
Will remember us fondly
And the elmtreestoo
That bent over us
In prophetic mourning.
To the doubting elms I whisper
Small light lies about you,
Aboutus being together.
The tangled park sighs
On a breath ofwind,
The elms shake their heads,
The wild chervil reddens.
Only the scolding catcall
Of the impudent starling
Shrills outmy bitterness
For all to hear.
Please, don’t listen.
It has nothing to do with you.
You don’t understand, what I crave.
To sit for a while by a rock. It feels good
By the silence of arock. To be alone and
Together, at the same time.
Then toimagine the condolence of the rock
When I ask, do you love me? Noreproach.
No rebuff of outstretched hand.
Just mute comfort: donot be sad
When day slowly slides
Into the coolness of dusk…
Do not be angry. I know,
I should not crave so much.
Forgive Me
Forgive me. The oak sheds branches.
Broken by no one. On itsown.
In the bark a russet streak remains.
A bitter eye.
Butdried. It could hurt
To know that moment when
You must declineand hold your peace.
Life’s autumn has come.
I shed you. With awhisper it falls,
The branch caressed for years.
And then—muteness. And beyond winter,
Grizzled spring.
The Black Time
Hardly a green, just a faint airborne premonition
That soon agreen-tinged mist will envelop supple birches
The timorous northernlove of the slow greening of birch trees.
The waiting. Thebreathlessness. The almost choking tenderness.
Unseen.Unheard. The buds of birch unfurl. There’s still
A lull between theowl’s moan and the lark’s trill. It’s still
A black time— a pulsingstreak between the white and the green.
Hardly a green, just a faintairborne premonition.
To Be the Roots
To be the roots. In subsoil where never a ray
Descends. Where lightnever glances.
A birdless bough. A leafless branch.
A springhead in the finest web of thread
That must not break. The hardlabor of roots
Without respite. (Even winter’s sleep is onlyapparent.)
To store. To feed. To quench. To be a mute link
Between the bitter end and life. By self denied
And crippled toallow the white flower
The celebration of the sun,
The power ofbeauty’s revealment.
To be the roots. And not to envy the flower.
Words about Words
Wordscame to me in a dream. They gathered around like little
scamps,whose mother had been summoned by the militia to answer
for theirmischief. And the soft lips of the smallest and sweetest of
themgrew stiff and began to quiver and it seemed, at any moment
now, hewould cry, “I’ll never do it again.” But he wasn’t a crying
word.And so I said:
Words, my words, don’t hang your heads, when onceagain
We’re put on trial. The dock of the accused
Is just a wornthreshold to be trodden
For a world with no walls to begin. A landnot a room.
There comes a time to hatch from the egg.
All birdsknow this. Even the hen.
This is known by the bird. The poet. Andthe word.
Even the ultimate sentence brings a freedom,
Thatcannot be revoked. If brushed by open air,
Don’t look back on thewalls, your life.
Birds die. And poets. The blow of an axe
Can’tfell a word that’s said before death.
A word that’s been spokencan’t be annulled.
Like a swallow in the sky, it can’t be run toground.
Words, my words, spare your pity!
The ground thatsupports the harvest
Is not to be pitied by the seed.
With nonew shoots, no ploughshare, the soil grows thin.
Hack deeper,painfully, for new thought to thrive.
Come praise or punishment:it’s not your worry.
When the poem is done, the gates between usclose.
Go on alone. I brought you forth to life,
And take fullresponsibility,
Words, my words…
Translated by Māra Rozītis
Everything’s gone into hiding
Everything’s gone into hiding. Buried itself in the ground,
Sowinter will feel it’s victorious, in charge.
The tulip sleeps in thebulb. And the earth will not reveal
What the white roots are up to,lying in black ambush.
My toads too are asleep between twosummers,
Their breath gone quiet under the sheltering soil.
Invain Jack Frost—that sullen sleepwalker—goes in pursuit
Of secretthoughts of spring.
Between two darknesses, like the gold oftoad
Eyes, my heart sleeps: Nothing can touch it,
Patiently itsaves up their opening to the light.
While winter thinks it’svictorious, in charge.
Bird cherry trinity
1
The bird cherry shows sharp green claws—
Any time nowit’s going to draw blood,
Any time now the pungency of its suddenbloom
Will pour into the wound it has torn.
The warning ofthe green claws
Is piercing and brief:
Don’t stand on the rootsof a bird cherry
That wants to get into heaven.
Only whentwilight’s eyes are watching
The bud bursts open.
The birdcherry can wait no longer,
The branches all tremble.
Go inpeace—the wounds of blooming
Are hard to heal.
The birdcherry’s green claws are raised—
Ready to strike.
2
And then let the coldness of bird cherry blossoms come over me,
White and hostile: Don’t touch.
Fragile branches. With nothing but alight hand
You can pick a whole armful.
But your head will ache,and your ears
Will boom with the scorn of the bird cherryblossoms.
Break all you want. You’ll be too weak
To keep whatyou’ve picked.
This is bird cherry blossom land. Even a wiltingbranch
Has no yielding in it, no gentleness.
… Like swansnorthbound on cool wings,
Rustle, oh bird cherry blossom winds, pastmy cheek…
3
A nightingale whipped the darkness,
Struck her ownblows, was her own undoing.
In black, hollow drops nightdissolved.
She was the one who kissed, and then rebuffed,
Watched her own reflection in the mirror of her own pain,
Forgedexaltation on an anvil
Of apple blossoms. Wept and laughed like onedemented,
Made dizzy by the bird cherry trees’ white poison.
Somewhere a lump of soft earth shuddered.
A red flame blazed up fromits prison,
Strung on a green and bitter stalk
Under the treethe bleeding heart
Began to blossom.
Translated by Ilze Klavina-Mueller
“Medieval Motif: Inquisition”
I believe. But the symbol of faith is—a cross.
Dissent, a crybetween earth’s lateral plot
And the line that reaches directly forheaven.
Dissent, a silence between the dark root
And the bloomthat reaches for the sun.
I hang by nails. Becoming blood—thecross.
My happiness and torment. Reward and punishment.
Ibelieve, only as a heretic
Translated by J.C. Todd
