Unknown photographer, poet Judita Vaičiūnaitė, 1972. Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum, Limis.lt

I returned to this city in fog. I returned to the damp
muted gleam of its spires. To its warm, redeeming rains.

Unknown photographer, poet Liūnė Sutema, 1949 Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum, Limis.lt

I will emigrate to that country which doesn't yet exist
and will give it the name
SUTEMA,
and it will be independent
from the sky and the earth,

Photo from the Vilnius review archives

What can I say? Adieu, my sleepy buddies – spongers, homeless products of a developed society, with incomplete high school and even higher diplomas. Adieu, sensitive-souled musicians – I'm off to sunny Užupis! That's where I was planning to go anyway: my beloved is awaiting me there. Off to the Independent Republic of Užupis! Our Sorrento, Athens, our Monterey, Toremolina and Pamplona! Let me step across the border – the Vilnelė. Adios! Vale! Let me just take a little drink from the spring, sprouting on the shore of the brook. So my throat doesn't get dry.

Photo by Vladas Braziūnas

I like these kinds of scenes –
Because they are peaceful and provide healthy laughter:
You'll see with your own eyes just how easily, how quickly
A person sometimes
Leaps away from
                     Death.

Photo from authors personal archive

My narrow shoulders were weighed down with all that had happened, and all that would happen, and I couldn't bear the burden any longer, for the load was so great, so I preferred not to go back halfway from the path which led to the pit, but simply to go on, till the end, but the path wasn't there, and I felt a sharp blow in my chest, like Jesus, in the same place, and I collapsed on the table, all laid as it was for Passover. Only after I was pronounced clinically dead did I become aware that I had knocked over the goblet of red wine and everybody, frozen, had watched as I bled.

Photo by Paulius Mazūras

each time I turn in here I feel as if
I live here – in this café
: it is so pleasantly smoke-filled here, stayed in
in each one here are several motes of me

Photo by Vladas Braziūnas

Loreta: Once I gave my mother to smell a flower that hadn't yet bloomed. She said it didn't smell like anything, but to me it smelled green. Many seeing people say that water doesn't have a scent, but I smell it. Even two different things without scents, they smell. Seeing people say those things don't have a scent. I agree that there is no scent, but they are scentless differently. If they are scentless differently then it means there is some kind of a smell.

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