Praying to Lithuania - Salomėja Nėris the most beautiful voice of Lithuanian poetry

 

Lithuania is a land that many do not even know where it is. A land of long winters and short summers, of snow and frost, ice cold wind and rain and scarce sunshine.

One of the birds, present almost everywhere, ungainly, that plagues cities and countryside is the crow. Its cawing is everywhere, his scratching under the trees in a perennial search of scarce food, in a land so stingy with the sun, is almost ruthless.

And it is surprising that this animal and this nation can be sung by poetry, by an equally tormented poetess: Salomėja Nėris. A poet who, it is said, betrayed her homeland to be on Stalin's side. But her poems exude a sacred love for her land which she celebrates in a pagan way, turning the natural elements into sacred entities that speak to blood and bones of every living creature,

Here is an example of her poetry, of her great love and the nostalgic nostos, the merciless but nonetheless yearned-for return that will welcome her post-mortem.

A beautiful example of poetry that confirms, even in such an insensitive and cold region that poetry is the Sisyphean effort to bring the inexpressible to expression, the beauty of emotions in front of the wonder of the human being who questions himself and seeks answers.

A beautiful voice difficult to translate, I can only give an approximative idea of her way of singing and praying to and for Lithuania.

Bring, black raven, the message to my native home

Shouldn't I return,
Shouldn't I lay in that fertile,
cold and foreign land...

Why am I not a whip
swaying in the wind,
or the Nemunas [1] gravel
in the darkness of its entrails?

Whatever you want, I would be there:
a step at the threshold, -
let my face
be carved by suffering.

Little houses, little houses
I would bow to you
like a beggar to the echoes
furtively passing by 

And if I didn't come back
my trampled and fateless chapel
wouldn't they, my friends, find it, here

through the dark forest,
through the foreign country
fly high my song,
fly to my beloved land!


[1] The most important river of Lithuania

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Lithuanian text:

„Parneški, juodas varne, žinią į mano gimtinius namus...“

Jei aš nesugrįžčiau,
jei likčiau gulėti
toj žemėj derlingoj,
šaltoj, svetimoj...

Kodėl aš ne rykštė,
linguojanti vėtroj,
ar Nemuno žvirgždas
gelmių sutemoj?

Kuo nori, ten būčiau:
pakopa prie slenksčio, –
tegu mano veidą
bedildo kančia.

Nameliai namučiai,
aš jums nusilenkčiau
kaip elgeta aidams
pro šalį vagčia.

Jei niekad negrįžtau...
Ir mano kapelio
suminto bedalio
draugai čia nerastų, –

per gūdųjį mišką,
per svetimą šalį
tu skriski, dainele,
į mylimą kraštą!