Poetry

In the Lake Region

by Tomas Venclova

When you open the door, everything falls into place—

the little ferry by the wharf, fir trees and thujas.

An old woman, feeding ducks, seems as old as Leni

Riefenstahl. At the base of the hill, chestnut trees, not yet in full bloom,

are younger—but probably as old as her films.

All is wet and bright. A hedgehog or God-knows-whose-soul

is rummaging in last year's leaves. Dead water and living water

fill the plain. The twins Celsius and Fahrenheit

are predicting spring weather—while a shadow obscures

the past (just like the present). The first serene weeks scour the bridges

in a peaceful corner of Europe between Wannsee and Potsdam—where

much has happened, but, probably, nothing more will.

For days we have been watching a ragged crow—in the garden,

sometimes on the roof. The ancients would have said her

stubbornness augurs something. Emerging from the wood's

depths, she lights on one antenna crossbar

then another, her surface bright as mercury

in a thermometer's glass. But these are fever marks

we are incapable of understanding. The beginning of agony?

The past does not enlighten us—but still, it attempts

to say something. Perhaps the crow knows more about us

and about history's dirt than we do ourselves.

Of what does she want to remind us? Of the black photos, the black headphones

of radio operators, black signatures under documents,

of the unarmed with their frozen pupils—of the prisoner's boot or the trunk

of the refugee? Probably not. We will remember this anyway,

though it won't make us any wiser. The bird signifies only stoicism

and patience. If you ask for them, your request will be granted.

Translated from the Lithuanian by Ellen Hinsey

Translator Notes:
"In the Lake Region" takes place on the shores of the Wannsee, a small lake situated on the outskirts of Berlin. In late spring and summer it is ringed by foliage, crossed by small ferries, and populated by beachgoers. But for Tomas Venclova, the location has an altogether different significance. As the poem unfolds, its long single stanza becomes an archaeological site. Unearthed from the layers of dirt at the poet's feet, evidence of one of the century's blackest events begins to surface. Specifically, the memory of a meeting that took place on January 20, 1942 at a lakeside villa that would come to be known as the Wannsee Conference House. There, in what is now viewed as a turning point in WWII, high-ranking Nazi officials gathered to consolidate policy for the extermination of Europe's Jews.

As Venclova's poem approaches the past's radioactive material, it picks up speed, piling up an avalanche of objects: "black photos . . . black headphones . . . black signatures"—artifacts that, as the stanza widens to accommodate them, create a funereal mound before the reader. At the poem's end, the poet identifies with the stubborn labor of the ragged crow that, like an augural sign from classical times, signifies "stoicism and patience." These two quintessentially Baltic values have long served Venclova as guides.

Venclova was born in 1937 in Klaipeda, Lithuania. His family was separated during the war, and his mother was briefly arrested. The war years and the subsequent Soviet occupation of Lithuania have great bearing on his work. Already in strong disagreement with the 1956 invasion of Hungary, in the seventies Venclova became involved in the Lithuanian and Soviet dissident movements. He was instrumental in opening up a dialogue about Lithuanian wartime anti-Semitism. These activities eventually resulted in a ban on publishing, exile in the West, and the stripping of his Soviet citizenship in 1977. "In the Lake Region‚" returns to the subject of an essay he wrote over thirty years ago: "Whoever sets apart a particular group of people . . . and considers himself spiritually in no way related to this group, in essence, is preparing a pogrom, concentration camp or totalitarian system." Venclova's crow will remind us of this, though we have reason to fear "it won't make us any wiser."—EH