I take a step into the shadow,
A distant glory that once was.
I look across the field in sorrow,
The blood of comrades paints my home.
Our banners fall, our strongholds smoulder,
The iron ranks are torn apart.
The motherland once stood much bolder,
Now hollow echoes haunt her heart.
A mighty city, crowned in glory,
The city we once called our home.
Now German shackles choke our freedom,
But all her sons will soon come home.
But here I stand, still young, unruly,
A man determined to survive,
To carve a path back into glory,
And turn this bloodshed into life.
And I, a poet lost and nameless,
May earn no place in halls of gold.
But through these lines, this fallen moment
Shall live when all is left behind.
I arrive in a nation under siege.
Our banners are falling, our cities are burning, and German armies are pressing deeper into the land we still call home. I have no victories to my name, no rank, and no reputation that carries weight. I am young, untested, and perhaps foolish enough to believe that none of this is beyond repair.
Where others see ruins, I see walls that can still be raised. Where others hear the silence of defeat, I hear the footsteps of our people returning. I refuse to believe that Lithuania’s story ends beneath foreign banners.
I will write for those who fall, fight beside those who remain, and hold to the hope that we will drive the invaders from our soil and call these lands our own again.
Let these words be my first promise.
The Wounded Stork