translated by Kerry Shawn Keys

what I am forced to write down

I catch myself
after long, extensive manipulation
with tremendous spaces and times --
unable to forget
a narrow channel
overgrown with willows
that people dug with bare hands
between two ponds.
Once, in the shade
I saw a little bird
nestled there,
its throat green and red
like a napkin tied under
a child's chin -- for the slobber to drip...
How small its spine!
How wide its world of silence!


Translation © Kerry Shawn Keys, 2002.

Original text to come © Sigitas Geda, "Atakimo Akimirka," 2002.

Return to Recurrence in Another Tongue:
An Anthology of Translations