Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June's long days, and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. You must praise the mutilated world. You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others. You've seen the refugees going nowhere, you've heard the executioners sing joyfully. You should praise the mutilated world. Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered. Return in thought to the concert where music flared. You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth's scars. Praise the mutilated world and the gray feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.

To go to Lvov. Which station for Lvov, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew gleams on a suitcase, when express trains and bullet trains are being born. To leave in haste for Lvov, night or day, in September or in March. But only if Lvov exists, if it is to be found within the frontiers and not just in my new passport, if lances of trees —of poplar and ash—still breathe aloud like Indians, and if streams mumble their dark Esperanto, and grass snakes like soft signs in the Russian language disappear into thickets. To pack and set off, to leave without a trace, at noon, to vanish like fainting maidens. And burdocks, green armies of burdocks, and below, under the canvas of a Venetian café, the snails converse about eternity. But the cathedral rises, you remember, so straight, as straight as Sunday and white napkins and a bucket full of raspberries standing on the floor, and my desire which wasn’t born yet, only gardens and weeds and the amber of Queen Anne cherries, and indecent Fredro. There was always too much of Lvov, no one could comprehend its boroughs, hear the murmur of each stone scorched by the sun, at night the Orthodox church’s silence was unlike that of the cathedral, the Jesuits baptized plants, leaf by leaf, but they grew, grew so mindlessly, and joy hovered everywhere, in hallways and in coffee mills revolving by themselves, in blue teapots, in starch, which was the first formalist, in drops of rain and in the thorns of roses. Frozen forsythia yellowed by the window. The bells pealed and the air vibrated, the cornets of nuns sailed like schooners near the theater, there was so much of the world that it had to do encores over and over, the audience was in frenzy and didn’t want to leave the house. My aunts couldn’t have known yet that I’d resurrect them, and lived so trustfully; so singly; servants, clean and ironed, ran for fresh cream, inside the houses a bit of anger and great expectation, Brzozowski came as a visiting lecturer, one of my uncles kept writing a poem entitled Why, dedicated to the Almighty, and there was too much of Lvov, it brimmed the container, it burst glasses, overflowed each pond, lake, smoked through every chimney, turned into fire, storm, laughed with lightning, grew meek, returned home, read the New Testament, slept on a sofa beside the Carpathian rug, there was too much of Lvov, and now there isn’t any, it grew relentlessly and the scissors cut it, chilly gardeners as always in May, without mercy, without love, ah, wait till warm June comes with soft ferns, boundless fields of summer, i.e., the reality. But scissors cut it, along the line and through the fiber, tailors, gardeners, censors cut the body and the wreaths, pruning shears worked diligently, as in a child’s cutout along the dotted line of a roe deer or a swan. Scissors, penknives, and razor blades scratched, cut, and shortened the voluptuous dresses of prelates, of squares and houses, and trees fell soundlessly, as in a jungle, and the cathedral trembled, people bade goodbye without handkerchiefs, no tears, such a dry mouth, I won’t see you anymore, so much death awaits you, why must every city become Jerusalem and every man a Jew, and now in a hurry just pack, always, each day, and go breathless, go to Lvov, after all it exists, quiet and pure as a peach. It is everywhere.

You who see our homes at night and the frail walls of our conscience, you who hear our conversations droning on like sewing machines —save me, tear me from sleep, from amnesia. Why is childhood—oh, tinfoil treasures, oh, the rustling of lead, lovely and foreboding— our only origin, our only longing? Why is manhood, which takes the place of ripeness, an endless highway, Sahara yellow? After all, you know there are days when even thirst runs dry and prayer’s lips harden. Sometimes the sun’s coin dims and life shrinks so small that you could tuck it in the blue gloves of the Gypsy who predicts the future for seven generations back and then in some other little town in the south a charlatan decides to destroy you, me, and himself. You who see the whites of our eyes, you who hide like a bullfinch in the rowans, like a falcon in the clouds’ warm stockings —open the boxes full of song, open the blood that pulses in aortas of animals and stones, light lanterns in black gardens. Nameless, unseen, silent, save me from anesthesia, take me to Tierra del Fuego, take me where the rivers flow straight up, horizontal rivers flowing up and down.

That city will be no more, no halos of spring mornings when green hills tremble in the midst and rise like barrage balloons— and May won’t cross its streets with shrieking birds and summer’s promises. No breathless spells, no chilly ecstasies of spring water. Church towers rest on the ocean’s floor, and flawless views of leafy avenues fix no one’s eyes. And still we live on calmly, humbly—from suitcases, in waiting rooms, on airplanes, trains, and still, stubbornly, blindly, we seek the image, the final form of things between inexplicable fits of mute despair— as if vaguely remembering something that cannot be recalled, as if that submerged city were traveling with us, always asking questions, and always unhappy with our answers— exacting, and perfect in its way.

I read your poetry once more, poems written by a rich man, knowing all, and by a beggar, homeless, an emigrant, alone. You always wanted to go beyond poetry, above it, soaring, but also lower, to where our region begins, modest and timid. Sometimes your tone transforms us for a moment, we believe—truly— that every day is sacred, that poetry—how to put it? — makes life rounder, fuller, prouder, unashamed of perfect formulation. But evening arrives, I lay my book aside, and the city's ordinary din resumes— somebody coughs, someone cries and curses.

Night is a cistern. Owls sing. Refugees tread meadow roads with the loud rustling of endless grief. Who are you, walking in this worried crowd. And who will you become, who will you be when day returns, and ordinary greetings circle round. Night is a cistern. The last pairs dance at a country ball. High waves cry from the sea, the wind rocks pines. An unknown hand draws the dawn’s first stroke. Lamps fade, a motor chokes. Before us, life’s path, and instants of astronomy.

The day was mild, the light was generous. The German on the café terrace held a small book on his lap. I caught sight of the title: Mysticism for Beginners. Suddenly I understood that the swallows patrolling the streets of Montepulciano with their shrill whistles, and the hushed talk of timid travelers from Eastern, so-called Central Europe, and the white herons standing—yesterday? the day before?— like nuns in fields of rice, and the dusk, slow and systematic, erasing the outlines of medieval houses, and olive trees on little hills, abandoned to the wind and heat, and the head of the Unknown Princess that I saw and admired in the Louvre, and stained-glass windows like butterfly wings sprinkled with pollen, and the little nightingale practicing its speech beside the highway, and any journey, any kind of trip, are only mysticism for beginners, the elementary course, prelude to a test that's been postponed.

For example, with someone who no longer is, who exists only in yellowed letters. Or long walks beside a stream, whose depths hold hidden porcelain cups—and the talks about philosophy with a timid student or the postman. A passerby with proud eyes whom you'll never know. Friendship with this world, ever more perfect (if not for the salty smell of blood). The old man sipping coffee in St.-Lazare, who reminds you of someone. Faces flashing by in local trains— the happy faces of travelers headed perhaps for a splendid ball, or a beheading. And friendship with yourself —since after all you don't know who you are.

This is a poem about the great ships that wandered the oceans And groaned sometimes in deep voices, grumbling about fog and submerged peaks, But usually they sliced the pages of tropical seas in silence, Divided by height, category, and class, just like our communities and hotels. Beneath the deck poor emigrants played cards, and no one won While on the highest deck Claudel gazed at Ysé and her hair glowed. And toasts were raised to a safe trip, to coming times, Toasts were raised, Alsatian wine and champagne from France's finest vineyards, Some days were static, windless, when only the light seeped steadily, Days when nothing happened but the horizon, which traveled with the ship, Days of emptiness and boredom, playing solitaire, repeating the latest news, Who'd been seen with whom in a tropical night's shade, embracing beneath a peach-colored moon. But filthy stokers tirelessly tossed coal into open flaming mouths And everything that is now already existed then, but in condensed form. Our days already existed and our hearts baked in the blazing stove, And the moment when I met you may also have existed, and my mistrust Brittle as a faience plate, and my faith, no less frail and capricious, And my searches for the final answer, my disappointments and discoveries. Great ships: some sunk suddenly, arousing consciences and fear, Gaining deathless fame, becoming stars of special bulletins. Others went peacefully, waned without a word in provincial ports, in dockyards, Beneath a coat of rust, a ruddy fur of rust, a slipcover of rust, and waited For the final transformation, the last judgment of souls and objects, They wait as patiently as chess players in Luxembourg Garden nudging pieces a fraction of an inch or so.

The sun sets behind the market square, and the nettle leaves reflect the small town’s imperfections. Teapots whistle in the houses, like many trains departing simultaneously. Bonfires flame on meadows and their long sighs weave above the trees like drifting kites. The last pilgrims return from the church uncertainly. TV sets awaken, and instantly know all, like the demons of Alexandria with swindlers’ swarthy faces. Knives descend on bread, on sausage, on wood, on offerings. The sky grows darker; angels used to hide there, but now it’s just the police sergeant and his dear departed motorcycle. Rain falls, the cobbled streets grow black. Little abysses open between the stones.