reflexively.
I thought: I’ll call you,
tell you, don’t come just yet,
they’re predicting rain for days.
Only Agnieszka, a widow,
met the lovely girl with a smile.
Puddle
I remember that childhood fear well.
I avoided puddles,
especially fresh ones, after showers.
One of them might be bottomless, after all,
even though it looks just like the rest.
I’ll step and suddenly be swallowed whole,
I’ll start rising downward,
then even deeper down
toward the reflected clouds
and maybe farther.
Then the puddle will dry up,
shut above me,
I’m trapped for good—where—
with a shout that never made it to the surface.
Understanding came only later:
not all misadventures
fit within the world’s laws
and even if they wanted to,
they couldn’t happen.
First Love
They say
the first love’s most important.
That’s very romantic,
but not my experience.
Something was and wasn’t there between us,
something went on and went away.
My hands never tremble
when I stumble on silly keepsakes
and a sheaf of letters tied with string
—not even ribbon.
Our only meeting after years:
two chairs chatting
at a chilly table.
Other loves
still breathe deep inside me.
This one’s too short of breath even to sigh.
Yet just exactly as it is,
it does what the others still can’t manage:
unremembered,
not even seen in dreams,
it introduces me to death.
A Few Words on the Soul
We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it nonstop,
for keeps.
Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.
Sometimes
it will settle for a while
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.
It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.
It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.
For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.
Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off duty.
It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.
Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.
We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.
Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.
It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.
We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.
Early Hour
I’m still asleep,
but meanwhile facts are taking place.
The window grows white,
darknesses turn gray,
the room works its way from hazy space,
pale, shaky stripes seek its support.
By turns, unhurried,
since this is a ceremony,
the planes of walls and ceiling dawn,
shapes separate,
one from the other,
left to right.
The distances between objects irradiate,
the first glints twitter
on the tumbler, the doorknob.
Whatever had been displaced yesterday,
had fallen to the floor,
been contained in picture frames,
is no longer simply happening, but is.
Only the details
have not yet entered the field of vision.
But look out, look out, look out,
all indicators point to returning colors
and even the smallest thing regains its own hue
along with a hint of shadow.
This rarely astounds me, but it should.
I usually wake up in the role of belated witness,
with the miracle already achieved,
the day defined
and dawning masterfully recast as morning.
In the Park
—Hey! the little boy wonders,
who’s that lady?
—It’s a statue of Charity,
something like that,
his mother answers.
—But how come that lady’s
so-o-o-o beat-up?
—I don’t know, she’s always
been like that, I think.
The city should do something about it.
Get rid of it, fix it.
Well, don’t dawdle, let’s get going.
A Contribution to Statistics
Out of a hundred people
those who always know better
—fifty-two,
doubting every step
—nearly all the rest,
glad to lend a hand
if it doesn’t take too long
—as high as forty-nine,
always good
because they can’t be otherwise
—four, well, maybe five,
able to admire without envy
—eighteen,
living in constant fear
—seventy-seven,
capable of happiness
—twenty-something tops,
harmless singly,
savage in crowds
—half at least,
cruel
when forced by circumstances
—better not to know
even ballpark figures,
wise after the fact
—just a couple more
than wise before it,
taking only things from life
—forty
(I wish I were wrong),
hunched in pain,
no flashlight in the dark
—eighty-three
sooner or later,
worthy of compassion
—ninety-nine,
mortal
—a hundred out of a hundred.
Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.
Some People
Some people flee some other people.
In some country under a sun
and some clouds.
They abandon something close to all they’ve got,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now preens.
Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles.
The emptier they get, the heavier they grow.
What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from exhaustion.
What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped away,
someone tries to shake a limp child back to life.
Always another wrong road ahead of them,
always ano
ther wrong bridge
across an oddly reddish river.
Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away,
above them a plane seems to circle.
Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or, better yet, some nonexistence
for a shorter or a longer while.
Something else will happen, only where and what.
Someone will come at them, only when and who,
in how many shapes, with what intentions.
If he has a choice,
maybe he won’t be the enemy
and will let them live some sort of life.
Photograph from September 11
They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.
The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.
Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.
There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.
They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.
I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.
Return Baggage
The cemetery plot for tiny graves.
We, the long lived, pass by furtively,
like wealthy people passing slums.
prematurely stripped of the sun, the moon,
the clouds, the turning seasons.
They didn’t stash much in their return bags.
Some scraps of sights
that scarcely count as plural.
A fistful of air with a butterfly flitting.
A spoonful of bitter knowledge—the taste of medicine.
Small-scale naughtiness,
granted, some of it fatal.
Gaily chasing the ball across the road.
The happiness of skating on thin ice.
This one here, that one down there, those on the end:
before they grew to reach a doorknob,
break a watch,
smash their first windowpane.
Malgorzata, four years old,
two of them spent staring at the ceiling.
Rafalek: missed his fifth birthday by a month,
and Zuzia missed Christmas,
when misty breath turns to frost.
And what can you say about one day of life,
a minute, a second:
darkness, a lightbulb’s flash, then dark again?
KOSMOS MAKROS
CHRONOS PARADOKSOS
Only stony Greek has words for that.
The Ball
As long as nothing can be known for sure,
(no signals have been picked up yet),
as long as Earth is still unlike
the nearer and more distant planets,
as long as there’s neither hide nor hair
of other grasses graced by other winds,
of other treetops bearing other crowns,
other animals as well grounded as our own,
as long as only the local echo
has been known to speak in syllables,
as long as there’s still no word
of better or worse mozarts,
platos, edisons out there,
as long as our inhuman crimes
are still committed only among humans,
as long as our kindness
is still incomparable,
peerless even in its imperfection,
as long as our heads packed with illusions
still pass for the only heads so packed,
as long as the roofs of our mouths alone
still raise voices to high heavens—
let’s act like very special guests of honor
at the district fireman’s ball,
dance to the beat of the local oompah band,
and pretend that it’s the ball
to end all balls.
I can’t speak for others—
for me this is
misery and happiness enough:
just this sleepy backwater
where even the stars have time to burn
while winking at us
unintentionally.
A Note
Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;
to tell pain
from everything it’s not;
to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.
An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment