{"id":20561,"date":"2023-02-01T15:42:57","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T14:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/?p=20561"},"modified":"2023-02-01T15:56:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T14:56:47","slug":"in-seteniai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/?p=20561","title":{"rendered":"In \u0160eteniai"},"content":{"rendered":"

You were my beginning and again I am with you, here, where I learned the four quarters of the globe.<\/p>\n

Below, behind the trees, the River’s quarter; to the back, behind the buildings, the quarter of the Forest; to the right, the quarter of the Holy Ford; to the left, the quarter of the Smithy and the Ferry.<\/p>\n

Whenever I wandered, through whatever continents, my face was always turned to the River.<\/p>\n

Feeling in my mouth the taste and the scent of the rosewhite flesh of calamus.<\/p>\n

Hearing old pagan songs of harvesters returning from the fields, while the sun on quiet evenings was dying out behind the hills.<\/p>\n

In the greenery gone wild I could still locate the place of an arbor where you forced me to draw my first awkward letters.<\/p>\n

And I would try to escape to my hideouts, for I was certain that I would never learn how to write.<\/p>\n

I did not expect, either, to learn that though bones fall into dust, and dozens of years pass, there is still the same presence.<\/p>\n

That we could, as we do, live in the realm of eternal mirrors, working our way at the same time through unmowed grasses.<\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

You held the reins and we were riding, you and me, in a one-horse britzka, for a visit to the big village by the forest.<\/p>\n

The branches of its apple trees and pear trees were bowed down under the weight of fruits, ornate carved porches stood out above little gardens of mallow and rue.<\/p>\n

Your former pupils, now farmers, entertained us with talks of crops, women showed their looms and deliberated with you about the colors of the warp and the woof.<\/p>\n

On the table slices of ham and sausage, a honeycomb in a clay bowl, and I was drinking kvas from a tin cup.<\/p>\n

I asked the director of the collective farm to show me that village; he took me to fields empty up to the edge of the forest, stopping the car before a huge boulder.<\/p>\n

„Here was the village Peiksva“ he said, not without triumph in his voice, as is usual with those on the winning side.<\/p>\n

I noticed that one part of the boulder was hacked away, somebody had tried to smash the stone with a hammer, so that not even that trace might remain.<\/p>\n

III<\/p>\n

I ran out in a summer dawn into the voices of the birds, and I returned, but between the two moments I created my work.<\/p>\n

Even though it was so difficult to pull up the stick of n, so it joined the stick of u or to dare building a bridge between r and z.<\/p>\n

I kept a reedlike penholder and dipped its nib in the ink, a wandering scribe, with an ink pot at his belt.<\/p>\n

Now I think one’s work stands in the stead of happiness and becomes twisted by horror and pity.<\/p>\n

Yet the spirit of this place must be contained in my work, just as it is contained in you who were led by it since childhood.<\/p>\n

Garlands of oak leaves, the ave-bell calling for the May service, I wanted to be good and not to walk among the sinners.<\/p>\n

But now when I try to remember how it was, there is only a pit, and it’s so dark, I cannot understand a thing.<\/p>\n

All we know is that sin exists and punishment exists, whatever philosophers would like us to believe.<\/p>\n

If only my work were of use to people and of more weight than is my evil.<\/p>\n

You alone, wise and just, would know how to calm me, explaining that I did as much as I could.<\/p>\n

That the gate of the Black Garden closes, peace, peace, what is finished is finished.<\/p>\n

\u2014Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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You were my beginning and again I am with you, here, where I learned the four quarters of the globe. Below, behind the trees, the River’s quarter; to the back, behind the buildings, the quarter of the Forest; to the … Weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}