Sometimes I have a dream: 
I am buried in yellow leaves 
beside the great porch of eternity. 
Damp, slimy trees feed the soil, 
I sense the winter's roots 
sleeping below me.

Sometimes I have a dream: 
we are buried in yellow leaves 
- roots, sand, grass and me. 
I will not let go, nor tear the shroud, 
I will stay in the cathedral porch 
like a stone on a river bed.

A sea of leaves above me, 
then a shuttered church. 
Sometimes a dream like this comes 
on the eve of eternity.

Illusions and reality

A heart promised to break. 
It was not broken. 
Life threatened to wither. 
Nothing faded it.

So what has happened? 
Is all this real? 
Petrified in poetry 
it stays alive.

Poetry

You cannot drink her, nor eat her. 
No, I do not like poetry! 
She has sharp thorns, 
her sticky coating oozes, 
she threatens with sediments. 
You wait and wait, but she sheds nothing.

If only she desired to break through. 
But all she does is deceive. 
She is like useless glue. 
Oh, let's try to forget her, 
maybe she will dissolve . . . 
No, I do not like poetry.

The return

I am back to simple things - to the dance of dust in air, 
to a tiny sightless spider coloured like the wall, 
to bitter, sobbing blinds that shiver in the cold, 
to strange slits in the floorboards full of powder and puzzles.

I am back from a hard, triumphant journey, from a crusade, 
to the secret mousehole hidden in a corner, 
to the dreadful death of a woodchuck, to the hedgehog's fright, 
to escapes beyond belief of owls and bats.

Things are quieter now, easier, brighter, safer. 
I am back like a weary dragon to the old, old tale.

Death

First version

Before there was no death, 
then her shadow grew with mine, 
later she was put in a corner like a rolled papyrus . . . 
Today she is close by and quick witted, 
each of my days accounts for her, 
she waits close by me and mine 
like an uncut book.

There is no old age

There is no old age! Only fruit and a flower, 
and new wheat, and a seed and everything starts afresh. 
Because the same angel, either in frost or early spring 
spreads his youthful wings, and grows and grows and grows!

Translated by Susan Bassnett and Piotr Kuhiwczak