really any kind of choice.
Wouldn’t we be better off
dropping the subject
and making our minds up
once we get there.
We looked at the earth.
Some daredevils were already living there.
A feeble weed
clung to a rock,
trusting blindly
that the wind wouldn’t tear it off.
A small animal
dug itself from its burrow
with an energy and hope
that puzzled us.
We struck ourselves as prudent,
petty, and ridiculous.
In any case, our ranks began to dwindle.
The most impatient of us disappeared.
They’d left for the first trial by fire,
this much was clear,
especially by the glare of the real fire
they’d just begun to light
on the steep bank of an actual river.
A few of them
have actually turned back.
But not in our direction.
And with something they seemed to have won in their hands.
We’re Extremely Fortunate
We’re extremely fortunate
not to know precisely
the kind of world we live in.
One would have
to live a long, long time,
unquestionably longer
than the world itself.
Get to know other worlds,
if only for comparison.
Rise above the flesh,
which only really knows
how to obstruct
and make trouble.
For the sake of research,
the big picture
and definitive conclusions,
one would have to transcend time,
in which everything scurries and whirls.
From that perspective,
one might as well bid farewell
to incidents and details.
The counting of weekdays
would inevitably seem to be
a senseless activity;
dropping letters in the mailbox
a whim of foolish youth;
the sign “No Walking on the Grass”
a symptom of lunacy.
MOMENT
2002
Moment
I walk on the slope of a hill gone green.
Grass, little flowers in the grass,
as in a children’s illustration.
The misty sky’s already turning blue.
A view of other hills unfolds in silence.
As if there’d never been any Cambrians, Silurians,
rocks snarling at crags,
upturned abysses,
no nights in flames
and days in clouds of darkness.
As if plains hadn’t pushed their way here
in malignant fevers,
icy shivers.
As if seas had seethed only elsewhere,
shredding the shores of the horizons.
It’s nine thirty local time.
Everything’s in its place and in polite agreement.
A path in the role of a path from always to ever.
Woods disguised as woods alive without end,
and above them birds in flight play birds in flight.
This moment reigns as far as the eye can reach.
One of those earthly moments
invited to linger.
Among the Multitudes
I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.
I could have had different
ancestors, after all.
I could have fluttered
from another nest
or crawled bescaled
from under another tree.
Nature’s wardrobe
holds a fair supply of costumes:
spider, seagull, field mouse.
Each fits perfectly right off
and is dutifully worn
into shreds.
I didn’t get a choice either,
but I can’t complain.
I could have been someone
much less separate.
Someone from an anthill, shoal, or buzzing swarm,
an inch of landscape tousled by the wind.
Someone much less fortunate
bred for my fur
or Christmas dinner,
something swimming under a square of glass.
A tree rooted to the ground
as the fire draws near.
A grass blade trampled by a stampede
of incomprehensible events.
A shady type whose darkness
dazzled some.
What if I’d prompted only fear,
loathing,
or pity?
If I’d been born
in the wrong tribe,
with all roads closed before me?
Fate has been kind
to me thus far.
I might never have been given
the memory of happy moments.
My yen for comparison
might have been taken away.
I might have been myself minus amazement,
that is,
someone completely different.
Clouds
I’d have to be really quick
to describe clouds—
a split second’s enough
for them to start being something else.
Their trademark:
they don’t repeat a single
shape, shade, pose, arrangement.
Unburdened by memory of any kind,
they float easily over the facts.
What on earth could they bear witness to?
They scatter whenever something happens.
Compared to clouds,
life rests on solid ground,
practically permanent, almost eternal.
Next to clouds
even a stone seems like a brother,
someone you can trust,
while they’re just distant, flighty cousins.
Let people exist if they want,
and then die, one after another:
clouds simply don’t care
what they’re up to
And so their haughty fleet
cruises smoothly over your whole life
and mine, still incomplete.
They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone.
They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.
Negative
Against a grayish sky
a grayer cloud
rimmed black by the sun.
On the left, that is, the right,
a white cherry branch with black blossoms.
Light shadows on your dark face.
You’d just taken a seat at the table
and put your hands, gone gray, upon it.
You look like a ghost
who’s trying to summon up the living.
(And since I still number among them,
I should appear to him and tap:
good night, that is, good morning,
farewell, that is, hello.
And not grudge questions to any of his answers
concerning life,
that storm before the calm.)
Receiver
I dream that I’m woken
by the telephone.
I dream the certainty
that someone dead is calling.
I dream that I reach
for the receiver.
Only the receiver’s
not how it used to be,
it’s gotten heavy
as if it had grabbed onto something,
grown into something,
and wrapped its roots around it.
I’d have to rip the
whole Earth
out with it.
I dream my useless
struggles.
I dream the quiet,
since the ringing’s stopped.
I dream I fall asleep
and wake up again.
The Three Oddest Words
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.
The Silence of Plants
Our one-sided acquaintance
grows quite nicely.
I know what a leaf, petal, ear, cone, stalk is,
what April and December do to you.
Although my curiosity is not reciprocal,
I specially stoop over some of you,
and crane my neck at others.
I’ve got a list of names for you:
maple, burdock, hepatica,
mistletoe, heath, juniper, forget-me-not,
but you have none for me.
We’re traveling together.
But fellow passengers usually chat,
exchange remarks at least about the weather,
or about the stations rushing past.
We wouldn’t lack for topics: we’ve got a lot in common.
The same star keeps us in its reach.
We cast shadows based on the same laws.
We try to understand things, each in our own way,
and what we don’t know brings us closer too.
I’ll explain as best I can, just ask me:
what seeing with two eyes is like,
what my heart beats for,
and why my body isn’t rooted down.
But how to answer unasked questions,
while being furthermore a being so totally
a nobody to you.
Undergrowth, coppices, meadows, rushes—
everything I tell you is a monologue,
and it’s not you who listens.
Talking with you is essential and impossible.
Urgent in this hurried life
and postponed to never.
Plato, or Why
For unclear reasons
under unknown circumstances
Ideal Being ceased to be satisfied.
It could have gone on forever,
hewn from darkness, forged from light,
in its sleepy gardens above the world.
Why on earth did it start seeking thrills
in the bad company of matter?
What use could it have for imitators,
inept, ill-starred,
lacking all prospects for eternity?
Wisdom limping
with a thorn stuck in its heel?
Harmony derailed
by roiling waters?
Beauty
holding unappealing entrails
and Good—
why the shadow
when it didn’t have one before?
There must have been some reason,
however slight,
but even the Naked Truth, busy ransacking
the earth’s wardrobe,
won’t betray it.
Not to mention, Plato, those appalling poets,
litter scattered by the breeze from under statues,
scraps from that great Silence up on high . . .
A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth
She’s been in this world for over a year,
and in this world not everything’s been examined
and taken in hand.
The subject of today’s investigation
is things that don’t move by themselves.
They need to be helped along,
shoved, shifted,
taken from their place and relocated.
They don’t all want to go, e.g., the bookshelf,
the cupboard, the unyielding walls, the table.
But the tablecloth on the stubborn table
—when well seized by its hems—
manifests a willingness to travel.
And the glasses, plates,
creamer, spoons, bowl,
are fairly shaking with desire.
It’s fascinating,
what form of motion will they take,
once they’re trembling on the brink:
will they roam across the ceiling?
fly around the lamp?
hop onto the windowsill and from there to a tree?
Mr. Newton still has no say in this.
Let him look down from the heavens and wave his hand.
This experiment must be completed.
And it will.
A Memory
We were chatting
and suddenly stopped short.
A lovely girl stepped onto the terrace,
so lovely,
too lovely
for us to enjoy our trip.
Basia shot her husband a stricken look.
Krystyna took Zbyszek’s hand