The Collected Poems (27 page)

 

Charlotte in a dress blue-gray as a rock—a straw hat
two ribbons tight under the chin—bends over Marat
and swifter than a falling star—administers justice

Behind the wall a city's rumblings Drums of Revolution

Farther off—a wood—fields—a stream—downy clouds
—slopes of air—wild lupine—mallows

And everything was as always
   on that irrevocable day

Sitting stiffly upright Miss Corday rode
wearing—as the court ordered—the dress of patricides
amid yowling crowds pelting her face with apple cores
she rode across Paris to her execution on a stifling day
amid maledictions but as if wearing a crown
of cropped hair

She deserves a monument or at the least an obelisk
because she belonged wholly to the mythical times
when Greek or Roman authors
and readers at gas lamp or candle
made a pact and believed fiercely
that the defense of freedom is a praiseworthy thing

Miss Corday read Plutarch at night
books were taken seriously

 

Tirelessly they work in me my ancestors' hands
narrow strong bony hands used to riding hacks
handling swords and sabers

—Oh how sublime the peace of a fatal blow

What do my ancestors' hands have to say
olive-colored hands from the other world
Surely I would never surrender
so they work in me as in dough
which goes to make dark bread

And what exceeds my imagination—
they plant me roughly in the saddle
and my feet in the stirrups

 

Because they lived by a wolfish law
history will grant them no place
they left behind them in piling snow
a yellowish moisture a wolfish trace

vengeful despair reached their hearts
before a traitor's shot hit their napes
they drank home brew ate dire straits
and so attempted to meet their fates

“Dawn” will never make an accountant
“Dark” will not be an agronomist now
“Marusia” a mother or “Thunder” a poet
their young heads will whiten with snow

they didn't leave an Electra sighing
nor were they buried by Antigone
and now they will be forever dying
deep in snow through all eternity

they lost their homes in birch forests
where the snow drifts in a whitish blur
to grieve for them is not a labor for us
nor for us to stroke their ruffled fur

 

Only buttons witnesses to the crime
proved unyielding outlasted death
and as sole memorial on the grave
rise up from the depths of the earth

they are a testimony it is for God
to count them and to be merciful
but what resurrection if each body
lies in the earth a clinging particle

a bird flies over a cloud sails past
a leaf descends mallows grow lush
a mist drifts in the Smolensk forest
and up in the heights a deep hush

only buttons proved unyielding
the mighty voice of a muted chorus
only buttons proved unyielding
buttons from coats and uniforms

 

White
oblong like Greek ships
cut off sharply at the bottom

without sails
without oars

when I saw them
the first time on a Ghirlandaio painting
I thought
they were a figment of the imagination
an artist's fancy

but they exist

white
oblong
cut off sharply at the bottom
sunset adds to them the color
of blood
of gold
and of celestial green

they glide
very slowly

they are almost motionless

I couldn't choose
a thing in my life
according to will
knowledge
or good intentions

neither my profession
nor a refuge in history
an all-explaining system
nor many other things
and so I chose places
numerous places stops

—tents
—roadside inns
—homeless shelters
—guest rooms
—nights
sub love
—monastery cells
—seaside boardinghouses

vehicles
like flying carpets
from Eastern tales
carried me
from place to place
sleepy
ecstatic
tormented by the beauty of the world

in fact
it was a breakneck journey

tangled roads
apparent aimlessness
fugitive horizons

now I see clearly
the clouds over Ferrara
white
oblong

without sails
almost motionless
gliding slowly
but surely
toward unknown
shores

it is in them
not in stars
that fate
is decided

 

From the pulpit a fleshy pastor holds forth
while his shadow falls on a wall to one side
candles burn—icons gleam—a silent choir
the pious folk are absorbed and teary-eyed

the words flow rising high overhead
the priest sure has a strange speech organ
neither female nor male nor angelic
and water from his mouth is not the Jordan

for a priest—you see father—it's all so simple
The Lord made flies so that birds could eat
He gives children and for them and the church
a simple hand—a simple fish—a simple net

this may be how to speak to those of quiet faith
promise a rain of grace and light and miracles
but there are also those who doubt and disobey
let's be honest—they are also God's little ones

please father—I've searched for Him in truth
I wandered in a stormy night amid the rocks
I drank the sand devoured stone and solitude
the only thing standing a high flaming Cross

I read the Church fathers of East and of West
a honeyed account of paradise—old anxieties
I thought a Sign would rise up from the pages
but incomprehensible Logos held its peace

you'll probably not bury me in holy ground
—the earth is wide—I shall go to sleep alone
I'll go off with the Jews and the odd ones out
pack up life's bags and leave without a groan

from the pulpit the pastor says the same again
calls me brother by my first name he calls me
but I truly want to make just one thing plain
that I don't know him and that I'm aggrieved

 

Thank you Adam for your card from Fryburg
on which an Angel with a cap of snow
with his great trumpet heralds a charge
of hideous apartment blocks

They've come up over the horizon they come inexorably closer
to reach your and my lecture podium

Hideous apartment blocks of Chernobyl Nowa Huta Düsseldorf

I can imagine just what you're doing at this moment—
reading to a handful of the faithful for there are still some left
“Das
was sehr schön, Herr Zagajewski.” “Wirklich sehr schön.”
“Danke.” “Nichts zu danken.” “Das war wirklich sehr schön.”
So there you are in spite of tragic Adorno's fancy theories

A comical situation because instead of
drzewo
you say
der Baum
instead of
obtoki—die Wolken
and
die Sonne
instead of
stońce
and it has to be so if the uncertain covenant is to last
breakneck metamorphoses of sound to save an image

So you're in Fryburg I was there once too
to make an easy buck for paper and bread
Under a cynical heart I hid a naïve illusion
that I was an apostle on a business trip

The Angel in a cap of early snow is truly a Destroying Angel
he raises his trumpet to his lips summons the fire
vain our incantations prayers talismans rosaries

The final moment is at hand
elevation
sacrifice
the moment which sunders

and we step separately into the melting sky

 

It's neither fish nor fowl
and has no obvious goal
Central Europe
jumps out and flails
like one of the tales
of Aesop

Hapsburg Otto served us
—a solid man he was—
in the role of our Caesar
we still have some Bourbons
but I'll say in all earnest
they are quite inferior

This plaything of Caesars
either angers or pleases
a quick exit on standby
appears on the horizon
its blue circle drawn
like a moon in the sky

Let it shine for a while
painted toy of a child
old man's nostalgic dream
but between us I admit
I don't believe any of it
(I might as well come clean)

 

Fundamentally there is nothing to be sorry about
you know this well Piotr
I'm not speaking to you but through you to others

for half a century you knew my thoughts better
than I did
you translated them patiently

on Čik Ljubin Street
in the white City
on a river now bleeding again

we carried on a long conversation
across the Alps Carpathians Dolomites

and now in my old age
I compose xenias
this is my xenia for you

I once heard an old man recite Homer
I have known people exiled like Dante
I saw all Shakespeare's plays on stage
I was lucky
you might say born with a silver spoon

explain that to others
I had a wonderful life

I suffered

 

—Children in the middle—
yells a graduate of dinosaurs'
developmental psychology

the obedient youngsters
green as spring lettuce
stand sweetly in line
holding sweaty paws

and on both their sides
stride robust nephews
from a cadet academy
mothers fat as baobabs
triple-tiered aunties
and morose fathers
whose only pastime
is the monotonous
perpetuation of the kind

at the front
The First Secretary
founder of the school
of Naïve Socialism
a post-postgraduate
of the Cambrian Sorbonne

in just a moment
they will enter a clearing
and the First Secretary
will give a policy speech
on the virtues of mutual aid

it's truly a sight for sore eyes
over the whole congregation

the green flag of gentleness
flutters

divine equilibrium of nature

sufficient oxygen
a reasonable dose of nitrogen
a snatch of helium

the stroll goes on and on
for millions of years

 

Because you are a king and I'm only a prince
without a country
with a people who trust in me
I wander sleepless at night

And you are a king and look on me as a friend
worryingly—how long can you drag yourself
through the world

—A long time Yehuda To the very end

Even our gestures differ—gestures of mercy
of scorn of understanding
—I want from you nothing but understanding

I fall asleep at a fire with my head on my hand
when night burns out dogs howl and guards go
to and fro in the mountains

 

When I was very ill shame abandoned me
willingly I bared for alien hands surrendered to alien eyes
the poor mystery of my body

They invaded me brutally increasing the humiliation

My professor of forensic medicine the old Mancewicz
fishing a suicide's remains from a pool of formaldehyde
bent over him as if he wished to ask him for his pardon
then with a deft movement he opened the proud thorax
the basilica of the breath fell silent

delicately almost tenderly

So—faithful to the dead respectful of ash—I understand
the wrath of the Greek princess her stubborn resistance
she was right—a brother deserved a dignified burial

a shroud of earth carefully drawn
over the eyes

 

I will never forget you—the fleeting maidens and ladies
I glimpsed on stairs in a crowd a bazaar a subway maze

from the windows of cars

I will never forget you—pure sources of joy—I too lived
thanks to your doe-like eyes—thanks to lips not my own
and to suntanned fingers caressingly handling silver fish

I will never forget you—
a startled flutter of lids
matchless tilt of a head
the bird's nest of a palm

in true memory I go over the faces
unchanging mystical and nameless

and the rose

in black
hair

 

They say—
art is a mirror
that wanders the road