And so i am back after so long an absence. It's strange to again be here. I've missed it. Real life has been taking the better of me, but then when doesn't it?

University has been the main culprit - as always. We have so much to read, but i rather enjoy it. It's literature!

And yet the subject of the readings is hardly relieving. We are now dealing with such periods of Lithuanian Literary (and not only Literary) History as emigration and exile, and partisan memoirs. Their writings is the closest thing to the first-hand experience that could ever be obtained. And reading it all leaves one... feeling small and scared.

How happy we are that we can allow ourselves to worry about being late for a train instead of dreading to find empty home because our family had been taken away. How happy that we don't have to choose whether to join the occupying army or leave for woods, probably for good.

And having watched Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa yesterday, i can only feel happy i've never had to make such decisions as the boy in the movie. We who were born and have lived in freedom are rarely capable of acknowledging it. But in some fleeting moments one wonders as to why in the world we've been so lucky.

Anyway... anyone missed me here?



The featured poem:

UŽGAVĖNIŲ KAUKĖS

Galbūt tau bus sunku suprasti ir tikėti
Tuo, ką rašau; bet iš tiesų tai viskas,
Kas liko nesugriaunama ir tikra.
Po to, kai palikai gyvenvietę ir apsisprendei
Ne gintis, bet gyventi (kas yra gyventi?),
Šalia kitų keistų ir nesuvokiamų dalykų
Bei įvykių, mus ypač prislėgė šisai:
Po neramios kankinančios atodrėkio nakties
Miestus ir kaimus nežinia iš kur
Už plūdo šiurpios Užgavėnių kaukės.
Dabar jos tyko mus visur, visur mus seka;
Jų pilnos gatvės, medžiai ir langai. Jos sėdi
Už mūsų stalo, valgo mūsų duoną, ir mes žinom,
Kad jos netruks apsigyventi mumyse. Jų balsas
Skamba mūsų žodžiuose ir sunkiai
Išsikovotame rašte. Mes galim saugiai
Kalbėtis tik su mirusiais, ne su gyvaisiais:
Mūsų vienintelis atsakymas į viską -
Kurčia ir niekad mūsų neišdavusi tyla.

Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas



MASKS OF MARDI GRAS

Perhaps you'll find it hard to understand and to believe
But what I'm writing is in fact the only thing
That has stayed true and indestructible.
After you'd left the village and decided
To live, not struggle (but what is to live?),
Aside from other weird, unfathomable things,
We were especially upset by this:
After a painful and uneasy night, in thaw,
Horrific masks of Mardi Gras have come,
Invaded villages and cities out of nowhere.
Now they keep watching us and following around;
Streets, trees, and windows full of them. They sit
At our table, eat our bread, and we can feel
That soon they'll live inside us. Their voice
Keeps ringing in our words and in our script
That we'd so fought for. Now we only can
Speak safely to the dead, not to the living:
Our only answer to all things is silence
It's deaf and has yet to betray us.

Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas