Untitled #8 Poem by Janina Degutyte

With horror-filled eyes
we stared at the foreign tanks,
at foreign feet
stomping on our land,
heard a foreign tongue...
Through floods of tears
watched the boarded-up trains
in the old Kaunas railway station,
the crying, the screams.

And then,
night after night
the roar of engines
on our quiet suburban streets
along the Nemunas,
- which back then was
a clean and happy river. -
While we lay fully dressed,
next to our bundles of clothes and bread,
fully dressed,
next to our bundles of clothes and bread,
just waiting. -
Was it our turn?

This is how my childhood ended.