The Ones Who Don't Belong 1. Poem by Liāna Langa

I wake suddenly from deep sleep.
In the forest's undergrowth my shadow roams.
Hundred-thousand-year greedy muzzles suck
moisture clinging to a vessel of mist.


Like a large wet green tea leaf
the sky swims into my eyes - the narrows
do not frighten it. Star ships
nestle close to me, the wreck.


I don't know what the beasts will tell me,
don't understand why my visitors are silent.
I was your key, the new wine
that the devout locked away in dark barrels.


In a trance the dark breathes, dissolves,
casts in my features other reflections
of other bygones, other lives
and then inside a large part of me dies.


I suddenly wake from a deep sleep
as the grains of your hail erode my face.
Someone in an owl's voice says: God
but your hand is empty, empty.

Translated by: Margita Gailītis