Ja tu gribēsi, ja tu domāsi
Būt bez manis!. . .”
Tāda bija balss 1965. gada 19. oktobrī, plkst. 21.00,
sniegā.
6. Elegy: A Charm
“. . . Without me, may you thirst.
Without me, may your head never rest on a pillow.
Without me, may you be childless.
Without me, may you be nameless.
Don’t say I am absent—
I exist.
Don’t say it is snowing—
I exist.
Don’t say your heart suffers spasms—
I exist.
And where would you go?
The stream will run dry in mid-sentence.
Half the pages will fall out of your book,
And you will lose all of your teeth.
A hand will wither at half-mast
And follow you like a spook
If you should mean to exist
Without me! . . .”
A voice on October 19, 1965, at 21.00,
in the snow.
Elēģija par pērno sniegu Nr. 1
Kam tu tik pārdroša kā pērnais sniegs?
Vel droši visu bēdu pērnā sniegā,—
Kas gan vairs liecinās par pērno sniegu?
Par izzudušo, pērno, Nr. 1?
Vel droši aizpērnā, vel aizaizpērnā,
Un lai tev šķiet, ka bēda iztek,
Un lai tu nezini, ka Nr. 1
Man mūžam līdzi, salts un neizkusis,
Kā Nr. 2, Nr. 3 un četri
Un aiz-, un aiz-, un aiz-, un aiz-,
Cik pērno bijis—visi tie ir manī.
Vel droši bēdu, vel un nedomā,
Un esi pārdroša kā pērnais sniegs!
Elegy on Yesteryear’s Snow, No. 1
Why are you fearless as yesteryear’s snow?
Be fearless, roll into yesteryear’s snow all sorrow—
Who will bear witness to yesteryear’s snow,
To yesteryear’s perished snow no. 1?
Roll sorrow into yesteryear’s, into yester-yesteryear’s snows,
And may you believe it flows away,
And never know that no. 1
Stays with me always, cold and unmelting,
Like no. 2, no. 3, and four
And those before, and before, and before—
Whatever the count, all are within me.
Be fearless, roll sorrow away and don’t wonder,
Be fearless as yesteryear’s snow!
Elēģija par pērno sniegu Nr. 2
Mūsu kādreiz varbūt nebūs.
Bet kaut kur dzīvos vēl pērnais sniegs,
Un pērnā gaisma
Lidos kā lidojusi.
Tālākā sirdī un planētā
Pārvērtīsies par šogadu.
Mūsu drīz varbūt nebūs.
Pareizāk sakot, mēs būsim.
Satrūdēs mūsu vārdi, izdzeltēs mūsu ģīmetnes,
Bet sniegainais vakars atradīs citas lūpas,
Citus plecus
Un citas laternas.
Un tās visas būs mūsu.
Pareizāk sakot, mēs būsim.
Mūžīgi mūžos.
Bez “āmen”.
Elegy on Yesteryear’s Snow, No. 2
Someday we may not exist.
But yesteryear’s snow will live,
And yesteryear’s light
Will fly on,
Reaching a distant planet and heart
Transformed as today.
Soon we may not exist.
More precisely, we will.
Our words may decay, our portraits yellow,
But a snowy evening will find other lips,
Other shoulders,
And other lanterns.
And all of them will be ours.
More precisely, we will exist.
Forever and ever.
Without amen.
Notes
The poems are from Sēkla sniegā (Seed in Snow), 1963–69, except for the following, which are from Dzeja, 1969–1980 (Poems, 1969–1980): “the sky cuckoos,” “don’t say a word,” “stone, can you thrust aside a wayfarer?” “it’s long past midnight,” “and when snow is thrown into your eyes,” and “to my millions of years.”
From the Hospital Zone: Author’s note at the first publication of the poem (1989): “‘Hospital zone’ was part of the terminology. There were also the work zone, the living zone, and the ‘shizo,’ or solitary confinement punishment chamber, known as the ‘fifth corner.’ Everything outside the barbed-wire fence was called the ‘big zone.’ In this big zone, in a swampy valley, you could glimpse a cemetery—so repellent it dispelled any desire to die before one’s time. It turns out that this, too, is a way of learning how to live.”
Beneath the Polestar in August: Author’s note at the first publication of the poem (1987): “My month is August. Despite the fact that I was born in September. The number of poems dedicated to August would add up to, if not a small book, at least a long series. Why? Still summer but not quite. Still an ache in the heart but already also clarity. The very center of living and life, memory and hope at the same time. This poem was written some time ago, in 1968, but it still lives in me. That is my life. From August to August.”
Avetik Isahakyan: Haiastan: An Armenian name for “Armenia”—i.e., “land of the Hai.”
About Remaining: Epigraph: Trans. Mark Musa, The Portable Dante (New York: Penguin, 1995).
At the Seventh Gate: “Beyond the sun”: The Latvian word for “afterworld” is aizsaule, meaning “beyond the sun.”
Unexpected: Epigraph: Author’s note at the first publication of the poem (1989): “In the camp I found a discarded handbook for learning Swahili. I opened it and saw this sentence, in Swahili and in English translation; it became the impetus for this poem.”
Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński: Natalia: Gałczyński’s wife.
To the Accompaniment of a Guitar: Epigraph: Trans. Cola Franzen, in Federico García Lorca, Selected Verse (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994).
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following journals, where these poems first appeared:
Europa-Europe: A Poem, ed. Roy Kift (Castrop-Rauxel, Germany, 2010): “Cogito, Ergo Sum”;
International Poetry Review: “César Vallejo,” “To a Dandelion Blooming in November”;
Notre Dame Review: “Carl Maria von Weber’s Invitation to the Dance,” “A Lexicon”;
Poetry East: “Commentary,” “Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński,” “The Voice of a Snowflake”;
Subtropics: “The Seed Is Knocking,” “the sky cuckoos”;
Taiga: “To the Accompaniment of a Guitar”;
Zoland Poetry: “At the Edge of the World.”
Warm thanks to April Ossmann for her valuable reading of the poems; to Rika Lesser for her continuing support; and especially to Knuts Skujenieks, for his encouragement, discussions, and hospitality in Latvia. Also a sincere thank you to all who helped at BOA, especially Peter Conners, Jenna Fisher, and Sandy Knight.
About the Author
Knuts Skujenieks, born in Latvia in 1936, studied philology and history at the University of Latvia, and from 1956 to 1961 attended the Maksim Gorky Institute for Literature in Moscow. Soon after his return to Latvia, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of anti-Soviet activity and sentenced to seven years in the Mordovia gulag (1963–69). There he read and wrote intensively, and sent out in letters several hundred poems, first published in their entirety in 2002 as Sēkla sniegā (Seed in Snow). Returning to Latvia in 1969, he found publication of his work restricted, and made a living as a translator. A polyglot, he has translated into Latvian such poets as Lorca, Ritsos, Neruda, Vallejo, Gałczyński, and Tranströmer; poetry from little-known languages; and European folk songs. His first volume of poetry, permitted to be published in 1978, has been followed by four others, and his collected works (eight volumes) were published in 2002–
2008. Skujenieks has received the highest literary and state honors in Latvia, as well as awards across Europe, including Sweden’s Tomas Tranströmer Prize, and his poetry has been translated into more than thirty languages (including collections in Polish, Armenian, Croatian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Italian, and three in Swedish). This is the first collection in English. He lives in Salaspils, Latvia.
About the Translator
Bitite Vinklers is a translator of Latvian folklore and contemporary poetry and fiction. For the translation of the Latvian dainas she has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant; her translations of contemporary work have appeared in anthologies (among them Shifting Borders: East European Poetries of the Eighties, ed. W. Cummins) and in journals, including The Paris Review, Poetry East, Subtropics, Notre Dame Review, and Denver Quarterly. Her translation of the poetry of Imants Ziedonis, Each Day Catches Fire, was published in 2015. She lives and works as a freelance editor in New York.
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Seed in Snow Page 7
