a yellowish moisture a wolfish trace
BUTTONS
In memory of Captain Edward Herbert
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
CLOUDS OVER FERRARA
To Maria Rzepinska
1
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
2
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
HOMILY
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
A POSTCARD FROM ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI
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 handful listening to us deserves beauty
but also truth
that is—danger
so that they will be brave
when the moment arrives
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
MITTELEUROPA
To Alexander Schenker
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)
TO PIOTR VUJICIC
Fundamentally there is nothing to be sorry about
you know this well Piotr
&n
bsp; 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
DINOSAURS’ HOLIDAY
To Jan Adamski
—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
but then
the true
monster
enters
the scene
the Dinosaur with a human face
in a flash
the concept
is embodied
in real crime
and the whole idyll
is brought to an end
in a grim bloodbath
TO YEHUDA AMICHAI
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
SHAME
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
OATH
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
—like summer lightning—the augury of fair weather
—like a landscape adorned by the reflection in a lake
—like a phantom in a mirror
at the marriage of what is
and what’s just anticipated
—at a ball
when the orchestra fades
and dawn sets its candles
still unlit in the windows
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
You little lady from the Antilles I may remember best
you whom I saw once chez le marchand des journaux
I gazed struck dumb holding my breath not to scare you
and for a moment I thought that—if I went with you—
we would change the world
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
A MIRROR WANDERS THE ROAD
In memory of Leopold Tyrmand
1
They say—
art is a mirror
that wanders the road
and reflects reality faithfully
uncanny two-legged mirror
and so we know well
the dives of Apuleius
medieval Londinium
Don Quixote’s wilds
sentimental journeys
forays into the jungle
at times art reflects mirages
northern lights
the ecstasy of the possessed
feasts of gods
abysses
takes on history too
with mixed results
attempts to domesticate it
to give it human meaning
hence ballets
orchestras
lifelike pictures
motley novels
poems
in heavily gilded frames
Leonidas bleeds vermilion
in Beethoven’s opera a chorus
sings persuasively of freedom
a prince wounded at Borodino
refuses to fall
to the ground
art tries to ennoble
to raise to a higher level
praise in song dance and chatter
decayed human matter
washed-out sufferings
2
here’s a ballet
Svetlana sur la pointe
rises high into the air
and hangs there a cloud of tulle
on the caught breaths of delight
all this in a winter palace
an ancient dungeon a circus
where yesterday it swarmed
with men herded to slaughter
a ballet on ice—
eternal returns
a circle opens
and is closed
the classical pas de deux of victim and victor
the last of the Romanovs
dances with a handsome officer of the Cheka
a circus—
bells
the pit of the air
the juggler Unknown
with his standard bill
the (apolitical) beasts
are just being let out
the public yell bravo
from fright as usual
and that it can’t be
the sea lions are obviously bored to death
the polar bears add a little human warmth
KHODASEVICH
My friend from the anthology of Slavonic rhymesters
(I don’t remember his poems just that they were moist)
he was even famous in his time and fame was his game
nothing wrong with that but what was his entelechy
let’s say he was a hybrid a bit of everything mixed in
spirit and flesh up and down now Marxist now Catholic
cock and hen and to top it all off half-Russian half-Pole
At the beginning and end of his art there is wonder
that he was born that Khodasevich came into being
under the stars It was worse with his other wonders
about his identity and community about his roots
he himself didn’t quite know who Khodasevich was
he floated like seaweed on tempest-tossed waves
throughout the universe from his birth to his death
Khodasevich wrote poems some beautiful
some bad the latter may find favor as well
they have everything you want—melancholy
pathos a lyrical turn the experience of danger
sometimes a great flame rises from one of them
but over many hangs the spirit of the occasional
Khodasevich wrote prose as well—Lord help us
about his childhood—that was even nicely done
but he was much too invested in Swedenborg’s
riddles followed Hegel and hell knows who else
read always the same books badly like a student
He was an émigré by nature as some are born
let’s say as bastards saints or artists Himself
a second-rate nobleman he had a relative
who in turn was a baron or something along those lines
and so Khodasevich spoke of him very warmly
and admired his sulks his reveries his writing
in French living in Paris and having mistresses
Emigration as a form of existence an odd thing
pitching your tent without friends and family
living without sanction duties we all will agree
our homeland weighs heavily on our shoulders
our murky history atavisms despair it’s better
to live in mirrors without angst Merezhkovsky
babbles in his sleep Zinaida shows shapely legs
Finally Khodasevich died in some state of Oregon
The Collected Poems Page 25