A Lithuanian Elegy

Painting by Ann Thompson


A Lithuanian Elegy


for Jonas Mekas


Mist mist my beauty lost
I hear an old man talking

We must be woods
Wise women tied ribbons to branches

The wind knows how to read
So much water in this little river

Don't lose the old religion Moon
We are strong because we need

Sometimes a father's older than his son
Did you hear the sermon on the broken guitar

I have taught my daughter the names of trees
Touch no one till the sun goes down

You saw a man bleeding on the river bank
We wash and wash and never come clean

We know each other by the way we walk
Red ribbons like strips of meat in the rain.


Robert Kelly

Posted over on Jacket Magazine