When you walk backwards Poem by Gabrielė Labanauskaitė

City windows the eyes of sadness

Are closing with French blinds

With dying lamps

With evening twilight.

The eye-pupils of faith

Had too much voltage of emptiness

With each attempt to kindle hope

They'd flutter and explode.

When you walk backwards you head always north

Where polar bears

Watch programs through a tiny box

About the realm of animals.

I feel so sad, like I'm the last one

From the jungle,

The last one to have vanquished leafy forests

And got bogged down in vines of arteries.

As day gets bright with eyelids still half-closed

You sort out letters, pasting word to word

To a forgotten addressee

To a lost mailbox.


When you walk backwards you head always north

Where polar bears

Watch programs through a tiny box

About the realm of animals.

Translation from Lithuanian by Aivaras Mockus