BALTIC MEETINGS - Baltic Writers Council

a postal house, if it ever
existed, in ruins,
and this one bears a seal, one I don’t recognize:
On it, you can see the symbol of an altar between two trees
and clothed in several bell-shaped skirts of different lengths
a woman who perhaps represents a priestess
e sender of this letter is: “one whose breast is of violets,
whose head is golden, a wreath in her hair”
and the addressee: “one who knows what is proper, who lifts the hem from her ankles
when she quietly takes her place in the circle of her disciples”
is one, written in the same style, comes from someone who threw himself off a cliff
but it is torn and the pieces don’t fit together. How shall it be delivered?
is letter is written on such strange paper,
it is as though it has been purified to tinder in the sand
where the mailman died on duty. Where are his bones? ey can’t be found,
but the letter is still there, or at least its fibers.
I have sent it on, just yesterday
although the sender has disappeared and the addressee is as yet unborn.
Letters like these have been touched by many hands
fingerprint beside fingerprint.
One can see how they were worried by people who came in from
the fields from the smithy the kitchen or the shed
to be given to someone one imagined was more knowledgeable, and he in turn
would know someone who was knowledgeable, and he in turn -
Between the letters and them lay birth, death, fire, murder and seven lean years
and seven fat years and seven times seven normal years.
e rule is: You shouldn’t open other people’s mail, that’s bad manners.
About these, one can say: You can’t open them, even if you wanted to
and yet they exist, you hold them in your hand, you weigh them
and what is written in them is about entirely different things, even if they still meant a lot to you
because the sender was a complete stranger who was close to you.
e same could be said about the addressee. He doesn’t know himself.
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Translated by Margitt Lehbert