Heaven
I used to believe that justice would be done.
So I did not cry when my hair was pulled,
I suffered silently the unjust slap in the face,
slander both visible and invisible,
lost belongings, my burned doll,
the war which came instead of youth,
the handbag stolen from me,
my bicycle confiscated forever,
the old people's home, full of strangers,
the causeless quarrel, that thief called death,
loneliness I did not deserve,
a catalogue of injustice in which I was lost.
And I wait and wait
for my vast tears to be wiped away
by the all-embracing Father, nothingness.
Little Dorrit
Little Dorrit waited for me under the Christmas tree,
smelling of new print.
She slept with me in my bed
sharing my dreams
snuggling under my pillow.
Then she was lost in wartime,
with no glory, like my other things.
But her spirit, the Nike of Childhood
soared in her frock
out over smoke and flames.
Long ribbons in her bonnet,
tiny feet in buttoned boots
swooped overhead,
'Wait!' I shouted,
but she flew off and vanished
into Dickensian mists
into the maw of the fireplace
beneath a blanket of snow.
Cosmic wrappings
Swaddled in spaceship cabins
they appear on television screens
like grandparents long since dead
called back from the underworld.
In that restricted space
the way hands move amazes;
if, in the shining universe of time
we saw the hand of Leonardo
suspended with a brush
or the fingers of Giordano Bruno
protruding from the stake,
none of that would surprise us.
The announcer would say clearly:
Now here you can see the hand of Leonardo
being raised
to paint the Last Supper.
And now, a glimpse of
Giordano Bruno's fingers
as he burns to death in Rome.
Thank you for your attention.
We shall be back with you after the break.
The key
A small boy wears a key
round his neck on a string.
A symbol of homelessness.
He carries his empty home,
where he can return any time
but he will not go back because
empty houses do not make homes.
Don't lose it, said his mother, leaving.
Dinner is in the oven.
One day he will lose the key,
he will wander as if in a dream,
he will pluck at his chest.
It was there, on thick string.
A small boy with a key.
I meet him on my way
and cannot help him at all.
I lost all my keys too.
Loving my enemies
At last I have some real enemies
and I should start by loving them;
we have even signed a secret pact of difference.
Possibly you might mistake us
for two sides of the same coin,
or two ends of the stick.
Our coats hang in the cloakroom side by side,
we speak the same words
though our languages are quite dissimilar,
conjunctions divide us and do not join.
It is prudent even to love bad weather,
since, after all, it is weather of some sort.
I hunt for a point on the map of being
where two human lights at least can find some rest.
Caught in two feeble beams
they yield to love with slowness.
Lord, you know how hard it is,
and that finally judgment will be passed.
Justice shrinks before the fact
that people are afraid of one another.
If they were magnificent wild beasts
it might be worthwhile dying in their argument's claws
but
enemies must be loved to the bitter end
of our mortal truth.
Given away
I have given away everything,
all the favorite things
of everyone dear to me,
even the stone from the Aegean Sea.
I never regretted
those broken plates
nor my roses and trees.
Now, sitting here, I wonder
whether Someone Great thinks
I still have a lot to give away.
Translated by Susan Bassnett and Piotr Kuhiwczak
History
We no longer have history
all we have are wasted
moments of life
forty-eight hours of mock justice
this is not history these are not its bells
a day's quicksand sinking voices
our funerals in whispering leaves
the embrace above the coffin eyes eyes
and time rolling over us
will not have the face of history
but a fox's sly and treacherous snout
Youth
He beats his head on the table he screams
Where is the record
of everything never recorded
where is the wasted life
the youth snapped in half
the tragedy that's not tragic but
has taken root in our veins
all that we carry within us
that we keep hushed up
that we communicate
by bumping elbows on the street
that we communicate through our breath
on a crowded bus
Where is the witness
where is memory
why do we hand down defeat to defeat
He screams in an ever-louder whisper
So we only read silent novels
of wrinkles weariness wordlessness
death despair
And he wrings his hands choking
on youth's bread of denial
Closed Eyes
The little universe you can't escape
the prison cell of our death
earth's leprous skin
the swan's wing stuck in a sea of grease
who remembers the sight of a real sunset
the smell of soil split for seeds
and no gate opens into empty space
except perhaps the one behind closed eyes
Funny
What's it like to be a human
the bird asked
I myself don't know
it's being held prisoner by your skin
while reaching infinity
being a captive of your scrap of time
while touching eternity
being hopelessly uncertain
and helplessly hopeful
being a needle of frost
and a handful of heat
breathing in the air
and choking wordlessly
it's being on fire
with a nest made of ashes
eating bread
while filling up on hunger
it's dying without love
it's loving through death
That's funny said the bird
and flew effortlessly up into the air
The Other World
I don't believe in the other world
But I don't believe in this one either
unless it's pierced by light
I believe in a woman's body
hit by a car in the street
I believe in bodies
stopped short in mid-rush
mid-gesture mid-push
as if what they'd been waiting for so long
were just about to begin
as if at any minute
a meaning would lift
its index finger up
I believe in the blind eye
the deaf ear
the crippled leg
the crow's foot
the cheek's red flame
I believe in bodies lying
in sleep's deep trust
I believe in age's patience
in unborn frailty
I believe in the one hair that a dead man
left on his brown beret
I believe in a brightness
miraculously increased
to shine on all things
Even on the beetle
that lies wriggling on its back
helpless as a pup
I believe that rain
stitches heaven and earth together
and that angels descend
in this rain visibly
like winged frogs
I don't believe in this world
empty
as a railroad station at dawn
when all the trains have left
for the beyond
The world is one
especially when it wakens in the dew
and the Lord takes a stroll
among the foliage
of human and animal dreams
Two Faiths
To Father Jacek Salij
He believes if he believes
in God that He is
vast and indifferent
tangled up in stars
as in the burning bush
a luminous still spider
who hangs above the world
A giant Hebrew letter
with shattered shins
a nocturnal bird of prey
dragging bloodied life
in its beak
He would not dwell
in water churning with spawning fish
in bodies' rotten heat
in the rapt attention of hearts
Bloody history
a child's death
cannot call Him
from Himself
While we eternal prisoners of Auschwitz
think that he went insane with pity
and became one of us
so that he could look into our eyes
with a human face
from a piece of bread
A Cross
In a dream I saw a cross
one arm was short
and the other infinitely long
Some say
it's simple
All problems have already been solved
the burden is light and every tear
will be wiped away
it's enough
to live your life from start to finish
then simply awaken to eternity
But I keep carrying the other arm
the endless one
and I know that the light thing is a burden
that what must be wiped away is a tear
larger than the planet
there are days that drag on longer
than forever
And I can't imagine a death
that means awakening
a darkness
that is light
a moment
that is immortality
a love
that is not you
A Prayer That Will Be Answered
Lord let me suffer much
and then die
Let me walk through silence
and leave nothing behind not even fear
Make the world continue
let the ocean kiss the sand just as before
Let the grass stay green
so that the frogs can hide in it
so that someone can bury his face in it
and sob out his love
Make the day rise brightly
as if there were no more pain
And let my poem stand clear as a windowpane
bumped by a bumblebee's head
Service
When the angel of death entered
he found scattered underwear
a stiffened garter belt
and hands one of which
was reaching for something on the floor
a broken glass
a ball-point pen under the table
The angel bent and humbly
picked up a crumpled stocking
mindful that death is also service
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Claire Cavanagh
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