THE LITTLE BROOM Poem by Sigitas Parulskis

By the centre for ritual services stands an automobile
doors open, a man, perhaps about forty, with a little broom
in his hand sweeps away vine leaves,
pine needles, flower petals
fallen from truck beds, waves energetically trying
to also rake away all the
parts of the atmosphere that are full of the smell
of the last driven-around
corpse.

Later he will drive home, take his children to the zoo
or load up on fruits and vegetables at the wholesale store
on the edge of the city, he will put away his work tools, empty
beer bottles to be driven to the bottle buyers, and later
will sweep again, having slightly opened the door.

I climbed up the hill thinking about the broom
and garbage - you see, both one and the other
will always exist, we will be the broom and we will be
the garbage, even if we lived without ever arousing
God's compassion -
remembered a poem by the American Randall Jarrell
that Radauskas liked:
a gunner's remains
washed from the turret with a water hose