In-visible

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A poet, artist and botanist. As a scientist, she researches the anatomy, biomechanics and aerodynamics of plants. As a visual artist, she creates short films. She has published two volumes of poetry: “Atomy” and “Minimum”. Some call her a conscious poet of nature.

Caution! The magazine does not accept any responsibility for readers who, upon reading this text, might feel a sudden urge to climb maple trees and look for their green flowers, just like the author did.

Tiny flowers, single blossoms on their pedicels, scrunched petals, inflorescence gathering in umbels, in concentrated fragrances, sending wafts of joy toward our dreary fields and gloomy faces. Born out of tiny buds, emerging from tight little bundles, their contents perfectly arranged a long time ago, they stretch and unfold in the air.

Always short-lived, their satiny petals threaded with fine paths of veins carrying water. We notice the most vibrant ones, burning reds of April and May, soaking up the sun’s yellows. We see these

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Urszula Zajączkowska:

A poet, artist and botanist. As a scientist, she researches the anatomy, biomechanics and aerodynamics of plants. As a visual artist, she creates short films. She has published two volumes of poetry: “Atomy” and “Minimum”. Some call her a conscious poet of nature.

Translation: Aga Zano

Publish date: 20.03.2020

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Wailana Kalama:

A travel and science writer from Hawaii, now living in Lithuania.

Stork spotting

I first spied a stork in Lithuania from the back of a bike. It was the dead of summer, a blazing hot July day cycling in the grassy countryside northwest of Vilnius. We were cycling up to Kernave for Midsummer’s Day celebrations, expecting bonfires, singing, sausages, and candles floating in the river. It was the type of hot, sunny day that drew out smatterings of wildlife here and there – a few cats, cranes, even a fox once. We kept to the forests where we could, crossing dirt paths and sandy roads. But sometimes the sand was too much, and drove us out onto a paved backroad with no trees in sight. A couple hours into the ride, we spied a telephone pole topped with a thicket. A nest. Catching a glimpse of a thin bird overhead, I pointed at the sky: “Gandras!” We watched it as it glided downward, silent, soon swallowed up by grassland.

The Ballads of Kukutis

“My, Vilnius is big!
At one end
A stork stands –
At the other
It claps its beak.”

Also read:

The Pious Bird

Stork spotting

The Ballads of Kukutis

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