Janina Degutyte Poems

The thousand and one nights
Of insidious, snake-like delays...
The thousand and one nights
Of prisons and fairy tales. -
...

History. History is not papyrus rolls,
dried yellow parchments,
not marble on pedestals.
History is etched in the human heart,
...

You came to the burned village and
kneeling poured a handful
of burning ashes into
...

I'm open wide - to the last nerve,
Open to the last hidden thought.
Not like a wound -
...

To live is to long for eternity,
to plant a tree - to pave the way
to another world
which is in us -
...

Rain waiting happiness a lily
sweet linden scant -
all this fits in your name.
It is easy
to walk against the wind
...

Cobwebs drape their skeins in the sun,
While the sun spreads through my body.
With the fruit heavy, tilting at noon,
Will you come set me free?
...

On and on they march
Over Neringa quicksands,
Bent and sped on by the westerner,
Tall, speechless and boughless pine trees,
...

After your mother the first to kiss you was the sun.
Like a distant red island
It shone above the stork's nest.
And the first sadness of farewell
...

Bent over a white sheet of paper
I kept drawing the same picture:
a bright room, and seated around
...