Offspring - Vizma Belševica

In this dream, I’m the bad mother sent for,

my words: unruly bairns,

hanked to my skirts, mouths blared shut

except for the babby,

my favourite, his trembling lips stammer

submission while his milk teeth cut a rage

that gnaws his tongue to a silence

that moves me to speak:

Children, when they judge us

and they will, don’t cower

in the dock; iron bars can’t hold

the world from its orbit. Even

the caged bird hatches from the egg

knowing the purpose of wings,

as does the poet, as does the word.

Thought is freedom, and no bailiff

can extinguish its breath once

it is aired—it lives beyond walls,

beyond reach. Birds die, poets too,

but the word—even the most whetted

axe cannot blunt its edge, like

the fledgling swift, it is hard to catch.

So, run along now, don’t mither;

does the harvest worry for the field?

Remember, this earth won’t stay fallow

forever; in time it’ll be tilled with a sharper

blade. So run along now, run along—

your future lies elsewhere. Sneck the door

firm behind you. I’ll take what’s coming here.

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Vizma Belševica (1931 - 2005) Latvia

Translated by Mary-Jane Holmes

Source: Modern Poetry in Translation