TULIPS
Violeta Palčinskaitė

For children, who died and still dying during the wars Camp fires are similar to a sunrise. They died so early... I love you. I offer you Crimson fields of tulips. The mute fields absorbed The sobbings of the fateful minutes. How silent, silent is here. Calm. No pain. Here is the wind. Come. There is no need for words. Join hands. Come – Be children amongst us. Come together in the glade. Here. This is where the festival is. At the right time take a tulip each. Petals burn like wounds. Come. Let the way be difficult Out of the crematoriums, out of the ghetto... I want to give back your childhood, Toys, happiness, festival of summer. I am setting light to the sunrise of the camp-fires, They went out to soon. I love you, I offer you Crimson fields of tulips.

Translated by English poet Alan Brown