Autumn Poets - December - Ziemeļnieks
December belongs to Ziemeļnieks. There is frost already, snow and greyness alternate with insensible white, but people have not yet forgotten autumn's generosity, the orange of pumpkins, the red of apples, the roundness of cabbage heads. There is still plenty of everything, abundance of everything, and one can celebrate the solstice. Ziemeļnieks' poetry can be read at length, it is so melodic - but I wish to recall just one poem that is, in my view, timeless.
December belongs to Ziemeļnieks. There is frost already, snow and greyness alternate with insensible white, but people have not yet forgotten autumn's generosity, the orange of pumpkins, the red of apples, the roundness of cabbage heads. There is still plenty of everything, abundance of everything, and one can celebrate the solstice.
Jānis Ziemeļnieks, or Jānis Krauklis, was born on 25 December 1897 in the Russian Empire, in central Vidzeme near Smiltene, and died on 18 July 1930 in Riga, Latvia. December's frost is treacherous, sudden and merciless - it writes into destiny the early departure in the very bloom of summer, in the very prime of life, at the age of 32, when no longer does a dose of opium or nerve medication help.
Photo [1] from zudusilatvija.lv, a 1923 postcard. [2] Photography studio in Strenči. On the second floor worked the photographer Dāvis Spunde and his student Jānis Krauklis (Jānis Ziemeļnieks). The latter also lived there.
Ziemeļnieks' poetry can be read at length, it is so melodic that it is also set to music - but I wish to recall just one poem that is, in my view, timeless. Whether it is the 19th, 20th or 21st century - human nature remains unchanged.
***
You, great God, behind the glittering rivers of stars,
Is that truly all the happiness You gave to man
From Your heart, from Your dear hands?! …
Is that the only likeness left of You?
See how he crawls, turning his face toward death,
And, carrying his empty life like a tumour,
Now languishes in sorrow, now rages again in suffering
And drowns despair in loud laughter.
Like a slave he sins, sweating the sweat of fear,
Like a slave he begs from heaven for a single smile
And, tormented by doubt, cowardly forgives while loathing,
Yet in loving destroys, unknowing of hatred…
You, great God, behind the gleaming distances,
Is that truly all the happiness You gave us in love
From Your heart, from Your sacred hands -
Is that the only likeness we have of You?
Poem from: J. Ziemeļnieks, May Love Never Run Out… Riga: Liesma, 1987.
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