Wednesday, November 12, 2014

JANIS BALTVILKS ~










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