Blue Earth - Judita Vaičiūnaitė

To dig each day in the blue earth—
               to mine amber
while the sea moans through dunes . . .
               Once again, you find in your dreams
an ingot of resinous gold
               containing a primitive plant phantasm.
You dig every night in the somber ruins of Crete and Troy
               searching for
the old sun, the fragment of a ray,
               what time hasn't wiped away—
encased in fog, pictures of the past
               where the amber lacquer
of Alexandria shines
               on ancient Roman instruments—
every day, every night, preserving
               this sacred treasure—
to dig into blue earth,
               into darkness, between clods,
to find that shard of happiness, that one drop,
               that clearest piece of amber
which your ancestors placed in the grave
               at dawn, engraving with flint
the head of a moose
               so that you would meet no ill fate,
so that your endless horizons
               would be free of clouds—
this is your sea, your sky,
               your blue earth.

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Judita Vaičiūnaitė (1937 – 2001) Lithuania
Translated by Rimas Uzgiris