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In fifty years' time she'll sit down by the piano
(she'll be seventy four by then),
a grandma, wearing long jumpers,
who lived through a long, very boring war.
A grandma who saw trams in the streets,
saw a plane take its first steps in the sky,
heard people speak on the telephone without seeing each other.
A grandma recalling old legends,
who remembers Pilsudski and Foche,
who loved jazz bands
who collected letters from postmen
and who wasted her young life, never owning
a biophone, helicycle, astrodact, or pediter.
Watching a faded film, nostalgia makes her smile
and she plays an old-fashioned foxtrot.
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Maria
Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska
(1894-1945)
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Ariadne's thread
Down in Zaleszczyki along Rybacka Street
is the Ariadne hotel. The nearby hills were spread
against the sky in a tapestry blush
of honest, autumn colors.
Shallow and sleepy, the Dniester crept along
and cut off Polish tragedy from Romanian silence.
Up in the cloudy sky a monastery reared like a clump of bluebells.
At dawn I couldn't see the sun in the abyss,
but by nine o'clock it cleared the hurdles proudly
like a golden horse in slow, gleaming leaps.
The lazy waters brightened unexpectedly
and slowed down further. Shimmering leaves
brought by the wind fell into the border waters
and the neighboring land. Roses shed petals
across gardens. Poland was withering.
The Ariadne hotel was the last place I stayed
in the Country. After that I entered
the Labyrinth. But may the name of Ariadne
be a good omen for me. I am holding the ball -
the string is fixed to the threshold. I will be back.
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