by Marta Ziemelis
“The cultivation of renewed ethnic music traditions in the 1980s took on the dimension of a national resistance movement, in opposition to Soviet totalitarianism and russification.” – Valdis Muktupāvels
Every shadow on an unlit street
could be Soviet secret police,
plucking Latvian locals out of their lives -
permanent disappearance.
Poison messages fill the air:
“Don’t say those words, don’t sing those songs.
No place for them here.”
Yet people hold hands
From kitchen tables, parks and heartbeats
comes a declaration:
“Spread your words over ours,
a layer of glue.
Set spies to catch us,
when we speak.
If we must,
we’ll carry the words underground.
We’ll sing different songs,
a thousand-year code,
louder with every pause for breath.
Our words will never stop living –
secret, open, pulse and strength.
One day soon a wave will rise,
songs and histories
sweeping you away,
though the scars you left
will stay.”
About the Author
Mārta Ziemelis is a Toronto-based emerging poet and established literary translator. Her Latvian-English translations include "Do you exist, or did my mind invent you?", a poem by Gunta Micāne (TransLit Volume 11: An Anthology of Literary Translations, 2017), two short stories in the anthology The Book of Riga (Comma Press, 2018), and Narcoses, a poetry collection by Madara Gruntmane, co-translated with Richard O'Brien (Parthian, 2018).
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