The avenue decked with colorful-leaves
will prevent you from getting lost —
it will take you straight into winter.
PROOF
A handful of marigold seeds
and the feather of a finch
on my table:
the summer
really was here.
Rain on the windowsill.
Finally!
The grass and trees exult,
and the parched
tips of my nerves.
A lonely heron
high up in the autumn sky. . .
Lonely because it's so high?
High up because it's lonely?
A sprout
pierces last year's leaf.
I'm not sorry for the leaf.
I like the leaf.
And I like the sprout.
I was once a sprout.
Now I'm a leaf.
The wind
when it murmurs in the leaves
it murmurs like the wind.
The wind when it laughs
it laughs like the wind.
When it cries
it cries like a human child.
Everything in this world
cried like a human child.
I still cannot tell the difference between
a new wind and an old one.
A car abandoned in the woods
begs for forgiveness . . .
The moss is the first to draw near.
ABOUT BIRDS
No, not all of them will fly away.
Surely a jay,
a magpie, a pair of nuthatches,
a flock of chickadees in the garden
will stay here,
helping us
get through the winter.
A yellow birch leaf
floats away in the black water . . .
Do I ever want
to know and understand everything?
_________________
JANIS BALTVILKS
The Skylark Will Come
translated by Rita Laima Berzins
Poems 1990-2002
Blackberry Books 2004
