Homesickness, or nostalgia, is a longing not so much for people as for the natural landscape of one's homeland: its forests, mountains and hills, rivers, lakes, the blue of its skies, its sunsets—in short, for the whole environment with which a person has grown together, and on leaving which he feels that he has left behind a part of himself. (Antanas Maceina) Below is a poem by Salomėja Nėri s, one of Lithuania's most celebrated poets, who suffered more than perhaps any other Lithuanian intellectual from being separated from her homeland and, above all, from being accused of treason (rightly or wrongly, that is not for us to judge). Bloodied and plundered, You stand before my eyes... I would walk a hundred miles on foot Until I saw you living once again. Whether orchards there are blossoming, Or fruit hangs heavy on the bough, Or yellow leaves are falling, I shall return to you on my knees Through rain, hard frost, and winter's cold... Like the grass that grows in...
Laboratorio di scrittura