Spring 2024 - Recrudescence

Rimas Uzgiris

One May Day in Lithuania You walk down to the park where the leaves are turning that deep green of maximum efficiency, and the sun says, “Hello!” with a burst of yellow that makes you squint to see after the months it spent on tour in Tenerife, Ibiza, and Capri. That’s very nice of it, you think as you take a left up the street busy with cars racing each other to nowhere fast. You press the crosswalk button and wait.

Suddenly, a large rusty leaf falls into your hands, pulsing, beating its wings with the wind, and you think of the heart of the martyr in the green Orthodox church,

or is it a communist leaflet? “This is the past,” you say, “Or this is the future.” You don’t know which. The light flashes. You are waiting for everything to turn green.

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