Poems from the selected contemporary Latvian poetry book All Birds Know This, published in Riga in 2001.
Translated by Inguna Jansone.

*
Water lilies at night
close their shutters
and lock themselves in.

Water lilies at night
are afraid of the dark, too.

They do not know either
that there are no obstacles
to darkness.

Reading Room

You are reading me.
I am reading you.
The eyes, the bodies -
Our collected works.
Folios with the fragrance
of ashes and incense.
Volumes with spouting seed -
winter or summer,
spring or death.
You are reading me.
I am reading you.
We are read by the time - like newspapers -
scanning the headlines
and throwing away.

Language

Language, you are a glittering river,
into you I immerse my naked and warm self
caring for the moment,
not understanding eternity.
Language, you are the flesh and blood
of my thoughts coming from an unknown place.
I love you and everybody
who touches my ear
with you,
the glittering river.
Only in you I gather eternity,
wading the same place as ever,
as everybody and always.
Words splash at my feet,
the voice of my blood talks, whispers and
fills the chambers.
Glittering river.
Here, I am.
Only you can
confirm that.

You Are Waiting In Vain

I am an echo.
You are waiting for the voice blooming in heaven
and raining down
like fireworks.

You are waiting for the voice
to raise the birds from their nests,
to bear an avalanche
and to make the blue glass of heaven
split into a thousand cracks.

But remember -
I am an echo
and you haven't shouted yet.

*
A swan is flying over the city.

The swan is lonely.
The city is lonely.

I am the swan
and the city.

Immunity

We are all vaccinated,
pumped with hope
since our early years.
That is why we never
come down with
hot and feverish
expectations.

*
You would go much farther,
if you didn't have to
build the road while going.

You would carry much more,
if you didn't have to
carry a sword in one hand.

You would fly much higher,
If you didn't have
to look for your stolen wings every morning.


*
Hayracks in the field -
The order of the world seems renewed.
If the Moon will rise as promised -
it would be one step forward.

*
Let's go for a walk in the garden
(there's a garden around the moon tonight)
Let's go into the moonlight cafe 
To have a cup of moonlight.

Let the Universe play its street-organ.

You'll buy an aster of heaven for me
from some gardener.

Let us pretend we don't know
that his name is - Death
and pay him as much
as he asks.

*
I don't want to write in sand
I don't want to write on paper.
I write on sandpaper
Whether you like it or not.

It will smart your eyes when reading
it will burn like hay under your shirt
if you touch it when lonely
late on a hot summer night.

It will scratch your finger bones
as white as cherry stones
because sandpaper, as you well know,
is just ground stones.

I am writing on sandpaper
and it softly sparkles in dark
just like dreams ground into poetry
like the cheek of your lover. 

Translated by Inguna Jansone