The Collected Poems
Page 3
A priest whose deity
descended to earth
In a half-ruined temple
revealed its human face
I impotent priest
who lifting up my hands
know that from this neither rain nor locust
neither harvest nor thunderstorm
—I am repeating a dried-out verse
with the same incantation
of rapture
A neck growing to martyrdom
is struck by the flat of a jeering hand
My holy dance before the altar
is seen only by a shadow
with the gestures of a street-urchin
—And nonetheless
I raise up eyes and hands
I raise up song
And I know that the sacrificial smoke
drifting into a cold sky
braids a pigtail for a deity
without a head
ON A ROSE
To Tadeusz Chrzanowski
1
Sweetness bears a flower’s name—
Spherical gardens tremble
suspended over the earth
a sigh turns its head away
a wind’s face at the fence
grass is spread out below
the season of anticipation
the coming will snuff out
odors it will open colors
the trees build a cupola
of green tranquillity
the rose is calling you
a blown butterfly pines
after you threads burst
instant follows instant
O rosebud green larva
unfold
Sweetness bears the name: rose
an explosion—
purple’s standardbearers
emerge from the interior
and the countless ranks
trumpeters of fragrance
on long butterfly-horns
proclaim the fulfillment
2
the intricate coronations
cloister gardens orisons
gold-packed ceremonies
and flaming candlesticks
triple towers of silence
light rays broken on high
the depths—
O source of heaven on earth
O constellations of petals
• • •
do not ask what a rose is A bird may render it to you
fragrance kills thought a light brushing erases a face
O color of desire
O color of weeping lids
heavy round sweetness
redness torn to the heart
3
a rose bows its head
as if it had shoulders
leans against the wind
the wind goes off alone
it cannot speak the word
it cannot speak the word
the more the rose dies
the harder to say: rose
ARCHITECTURE
Over a light arch—
a brow of stone
on a wall’s
untroubled forehead
in the windows joyous and open
with faces instead of geraniums
where there are perfect squares
next to a dreaming perspective
where an ornament wakes a stream
in a tranquil field of level surfaces
motion with stillness a line with a cry
trembling uncertainty simple clarity
there you are
architecture
art of fancy and stone
there you dwell beauty
over an arch light
as a sigh
on a wall
pale with its height
in a window
with tears of glass
I the exile of self-evident forms
proclaim your motionless dance
CHORD
Birds leave behind
shadows in a nest
so leave your lamp
instrument and book
let us go to a hill
where air grows
I will point out
the absent star
tender rootlets
buried by turf
springs of cloud
rising unsullied
a wind lends its mouth
so that we might sing
we’ll knit our brows
we won’t say a word
clouds have haloes
just like the saints
we have black pebbles
where eyes should be
a good memory cures
the scar a loss leaves
radiance may descend
down our bent backs
verily verily I say unto you
great is the abyss
between us
and the light
LOOK
The cold blue sky like a stone on which angels sublime and quite unearthly sharpen their wings moving on rungs of radiance on crags of shadow they gradually sink into the imaginary heavens but in another moment they emerge even paler on the other side of the sky the other side of the eye Don’t say that it’s not true that there are no angels you immersed in the pool of your indolent body you who see everything in the color of your eyes and stand sated with world—at your lashes’ edge
WARSAW CEMETERY
That wall
that last view
do not exist
lime on houses and tombs
lime on memory
the last echo of a salute
shaped into a stone slab
and a concise inscription
chiseled in calm antiqua
before the invasion of the living
the dead descend deeper
farther down
they wail at night in pipes of grief
they emerge cautiously
drop by drop
they light up one more time
at the striking of any match
and above ground there is peace
stone slabs and lime on memory
where the avenue of the living
intersects with the new world
under a proudly clicking heel
the cemetery like a molehill
gathers those who request
a hillock of friable earth
a slight sign from above
TESTAMENT
I bequeath to the four elements
all I had in my brief possession
to fire—thought
may fire flourish
to the earth I loved too much
my body that fruitless kernel
and to the air words and hands
and longing superfluous things
all that remains
a drop of water
let it go between
the earth and sky
let it be transparent rain
frost’s fern snow’s petal
let he who never made heaven
return faithfully like pure dew
to the vale of tears of my earth
slowly crumbling the firm soil
soon I’ll give back to four elements
all that I had in my brief possession
—I won’t return to a source of peace
FOREST OF ARDEN
Cup your hands as if to hold a dream
just as a kernel draws water into itself
and a wood will appear: a green cloud
and a birch trunk like a chord of light
and a thousand eyelids start to flutter
speaking a forgotten tongue of leaves
then you’ll remember a white morning
when you waited for the gates to open
you know this land will be unlocked
by a bird that sleeps in a tree in earth
but here is a source of fresh questions
the currents of evil roots run underfoot
so look at th
e bark’s pattern on which
the chords of music are stretched tight
a lutenist adjusts the pegs of the strings
to draw a sound out of what is silent
gather leaves: a wild strawberry patch
dewdrops on a leaf the comb of grass
and then the golden damselfly’s wing
and there the ant is burying its sister
higher up above belladona’s treacheries
the wild pear is sweetly growing ripe
therefore expecting no greater reward
sit yourself down underneath this tree
cup your hands as if to hold a memory
like a dried kernel of perished names
and another wood: a cloud of smoke
a forehead marked with black light
and a thousand eyelids stretched thin
over the unmoving rounds of the eyes
a tree broken like bread with the wind
the betrayed faith of deserted shelters
and that wood is for us and for you
the dead have need of fairy tales too
a clutch of herbs water of memories
so over the pine needles and the rustles
over the sheer spun silk of fragrances
no matter that you catch on a branch
and a shadow leads up steep passages
for you will find and unlock the gate
to our Forest of Arden.
MAMA
I thought:
she’ll never change
she’ll always be waiting
in her white dress
with her blue eyes
on the threshold of every door
she’ll always be smiling
putting on that necklace
until quite suddenly
the thread snapped
now the pearls winter
in the floor’s cracks
mama likes coffee
a warm tile
peace and quiet
she sits
adjusts her glasses
on her pointy nose
she reads my poem
and shakes her gray head at it
he who dropped from her lap
bites his lip and says nothing
so it’s a gloomy conversation
under the lamp sweet source
oh sorrow not to be borne
at what well does he drink
on what paths does he err
son so far from my dreams
I fed him on my sweet milk
yet his unrest consumes him
my warm blood bathed him
his hands are cold and rough
far from your gaze
pierced by blind love
solitude is easier to bear
a week later
in a chilly room
my throat tight
I read her letter
in this letter
each character stands apart
like a loving heart
TREMBLES AND HEAVES
The vast space of little planets
which consumes me like a sea
trembles and heaves with unrest
second hands trapped in pulses
like mill wheels in warm blood
trundle along the fleeting year
the mute needle calls northward
over a swift stream of dark water
under transient clouds and skies
bury nearing death in a wrinkle
you can’t stop it with your brow
a desert drains mind and blood
from atoms points hairs comets
I construct my difficult infinity
under the mockeries of Aquilos
I build ports for frail endurance
THE CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY
I sowed the idea of infinity
in the unruffled soil
of a wooden stool
you see how nicely it grows
—says a philosopher rubbing his hands
And indeed it grows
like a beanstalk
Another three or four
seasons of infinity
and it will outgrow
even his head
I also knocked together a cylinder
—says the philosopher
at the top of the cylinder a pendulum
I am sure you see where this is going
the cylinder is space
the pendulum is time
tick-tick-tick
—says the philosopher and laughing loudly
he flutters his little hands
finally I came up with the word existence
a hard and colorless word
you gather warm leaves with quick hands a long time
you have to trample images
call a sunset a phenomenon
to discover under all of this
the dead white
philosopher’s stone
we now expect
the philosopher to weep over this wisdom of his
but he doesn’t weep
existence after all will not be moved
space will not melt
and time will not stand still in its insensate course
• • •
An hourglass bursts
in rough hands
and level space
is storied by the eye
obediently ordered
cones spheres cubes
shapes from which
a mutinous body fled
—lie there like broken pots
their contents evaporated—
optimistic spheres
a ray of astrology
blocks of atoms
on an avenue of wise dialogues
the philosophers are wandering
with the neat steps of surveyors
confusing the absolute counting
below a given number
3 perhaps or maybe 1
the universe freezes
and cools—
in an air heavy as glass
fettered elements sleep
fire earth and water
obviated by reason
LINES OF A PANTHEIST
Destroy me star
—says the poet—
pierce me with distance’s arrow
drink me source
—says a drinker—
to the dregs drink me to nullity
let sharp eyes deliver me
to devouring landscapes
words meant to save the body
may they bring me precipices
a star will sink its root in my forehead
the source will lend my face humanity
and you’ll awaken silent
in the palms of stillness
at the heart of the thing
TROUBLES OF A MINOR CREATOR
1
Whelp of the empty realms
of a still unfinished world
I wear my hands to the bone
laboring over the beginning
With a pilgrim’s foot I tamped
earth fragile as dandelion fluff
with an eyelid’s double-beat
I consolidated the heavens
and with insane imagination
made them a shade of blue
I cried out when real touch
confirmed an image of rock
and I won’t forget the time
I tore my skin on hawthorn
I stored names of plants of beasts
in a chink I dug out with a finger
then lying in the grass I admired
the fern’s shape the peacock’s tail
in the end I wished to take rest
in a wave’s shade on white rock
I wrote a natural history
a complete guide to the species
from a salt grain to the moon
from amoeba to angel
This is for you
dear posterity
/> so your light dreams
will not be crushed by stones
when night ravages the world again
2
You cannot pass on the knowledge
yours is the ear and yours the touch
each of us must build from scratch
his own infinity his own beginning
the hardest is to cross the abyss
that yawns beyond a fingernail
to discover with a daring hand
a strange world’s lips and eyes
—it’s good for small planets
washed by gentle blood
eyes closed—
if you put trust in your five senses
the world contracts into a hazelnut
if you believe impetuous thoughts
you will go on big telescope stilts
far away into the certain darkness
this must in fact be your destiny
to be made without ready forms
as one who knows and forgets
it’s not for you to dream of a moment
when the head will be a constant star
not with a hand but with bundled rays
you will greet an earth already extinct
BALLAD: THAT WE DO NOT PERISH
They who sailed at dawn
but now will never return
left their trace on a wave—
a shell lovely as a fossil mouth
sinks to the depths of the sea
Those who trod the sandy road
but never reached the shutters
though they could see rooftops—
will find shelter in the air’s bell
and those who will orphan only
a chilly room a couple of books
an empty inkwell a blank page
verily did not wholly die
they whisper in wallpaper groves
their flat heads live on the ceiling
their paradise is made of air water
of lime of earth an angel of winds
will chafe their bodies in his hand
they will
waft across pastures of this world
STOOL
In the end one cannot keep this love concealed
tiny quadruped with oaken legs
O skin coarse and fresh beyond expression
everyday object eyeless but with a face
on which the wrinkles of the grain mark a ripe judgment
gray little mule most patient of mules
its hair has fallen out from too much fasting
and only a tuft of wooden bristle