TOMAS VENCLOVA
Let us stand on between the museum box office and the yellow
plane of a rug. A few rooms away, in the ribbed hollow
of the recordplaycr, the landlord's famed bass swells
and tumbles into the abyss. He was an emigre as well.
These cubic meters, spli t into passion and void,
preserved only the second part. As if after a fire, we toyed
with time in the snow. Only bricks and pipes remained.
This dark is meeting other eyes, not yours, not mine.
117
The next poem is "Pestel Street." Pestel Street is in St. Petersburg–
formerly Leningrad, formerly St. Petersburg.
It
is the street where Joseph
Brodsky lived . He never went back. He died in New York and recently was
buried in Venice.
I
visited his old house in the year 1988, at the very begin–
ning of
perestroika,
after slipping into the Soviet Union on a tourist visa for
eight days. "Pestel Street." IReads poem]
The next poem is about the events in Lithuania in January 1990 when the
Soviets took the television tower in Vilnius and thirteen people died, inc! ud–
ing a young girl and the son of one of my former schoolmates. A film was
made about the events and reached the United States.
I
attempted to show it
in Urbana-Champagne, but interest was minimal. Nter the film there was a
sort of discussion wi th another enugre professor. This is the topic of my poem.
A projector flickers in the somewhat cramped hall.
Only three viewers. Four, inc! uding one
who came fi'om far away, who suggested this film
to his students. The oblong box preserves
a country where not even stones (or friends,
for that matter) remember him . Several languages
jostle in the subconsciolls. Garlands, faces,
and banners overcome the hanging blackness.
It's all unruly and festive. He who grew lip
in a feastless state cannot bring himself
to look at the screen. He already knows
what's in store: dark warm bloodstains
and mud. No telling them apart, no telling
letters fi'ol11 fire, or truth fi'om nothingness.
The heat drags down the university town .
Jasmines, fainting into a nod, surround
