Untitled #3

every spring
as the hawthorns blossom
along the river
my grandfather
smiling hands me
a flute he has just carved
from willow wood
he's been dead a long time my grandfather
and tiny yellow butterflies
cover his face
***
your golden freckles
your face
speckled with brown spots
your belly
your belly, which you carry
so carefully so heavily
a great magical sphere
you turn your head smile
at him who walks with you
and say something
to him
gentle sunflower ripening
in our irrevocably lost homeland's empty fields
***
look, then: how big this
bag is on my back
here are gathered all
the sicknesses of the poor
the flu, mange, lice
tuberculosis, misfortune, despair
anger and revolution
this is what I've brought for you
as you dance singing before the glowing
Christmas tree
in the great echoing high-ceilinged
room
as the first star
rings in the dark sky
like a silver bell
***
my grandmother's flowers
myrtles and geraniums
starched lace on red down pillows
that were my dead grandmother's
(could you find some likeness
in my face)
my mother's flowers
ficus and philodendron, asparagus fern
an embroidered white tablecloth, recollections
written in a childlike hand
in high school
I don't know what my greatgrandmother
grew on her windowsill
when my greatgrandfather
left for America and my grandfather
at fourteen
became head of the family
dis iz kazys paliokas
fotogref and he iz all redy
long ded in sum month
afder te furst
war
iz yur
faters so Im
senden it
to yu dere vincent
(written by typewriter
on the back side
of the photograph)