Map (27 page)

that we also mention this:

Life goes on.

It continues at Cannae and Borodino,

at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.

 

There's a gas station

on a little square in Jericho,

and wet paint

on park benches in Bila Hora.

Letters fly back and forth

between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,

a moving van passes

beneath the eye of the lion at Chaeronea,

and the blooming orchards near Verdun

cannot escape

the approaching atmospheric front.

 

There is so much Everything

that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.

Music pours

from the yachts moored at Actium

and couples dance on their sunlit decks.

 

So much is always going on

that it must be going on all over.

Where not a stone still stands,

you see the Ice Cream Man

besieged by children.

Where Hiroshima had been,

Hiroshima is again,

producing many products

for everyday use.

 

This terrifying world is not devoid of charms,

of the mornings

that make waking up worthwhile.

 

The grass is green

on Maciejowice's fields,

and it is studded with dew,

as is normal with grass.

 

Perhaps all fields are battlefields,

those we remember

and those that are forgotten:

the birch forests and the cedar forests,

the snow and the sand, the iridescent swamps

and the canyons of black defeat,

where now, when the need strikes, you don't cower

under a bush but squat behind it.

 

What moral flows from this? Probably none.

Only the blood flows, drying quickly,

and, as always, a few rivers, a few clouds.

 

On tragic mountain passes

the wind rips hats from unwitting heads

and we can't help

laughing at that.

 

 

The real world doesn't take flight

the way dreams do.

No muffled voice, no doorbell

can dispel it,

no shriek, no crash

can cut it short.

 

Images in dreams

are hazy and ambiguous,

and can generally be explained

in many different ways.

Reality means reality:

that's a tougher nut to crack.

 

Dreams have keys.

The real world opens on its own

and can't be shut.

Report cards and stars

pour from it,

butterflies and flatiron warmers

shower down,

headless caps

and shards of clouds.

Together they form a rebus

that can't be solved.

 

Without us dreams couldn't exist.

The one on whom the real world depends

is still unknown,

and the products of his insomnia

are available to anyone

who wakes up.

 

Dreams aren't crazy—

it's the real world that's insane,

if only in the stubbornness

with which it sticks

to the current of events.

 

In dreams our recently deceased

are still alive,

in perfect health, no less,

and restored to the full bloom of youth.

The real world lays the corpse

in front of us.

The real world doesn't blink an eye.

 

Dreams are featherweights,

and memory can shake them off with ease.

The real world doesn't have to fear forgetfulness.

It's a tough customer.

It sits on our shoulders,

weighs on our hearts,

tumbles to our feet.

 

There's no escaping it,

it tags along each time we flee.

And there's no stop

along our escape route

where reality isn't expecting us.

 

 

How many of those I knew

(if I really knew them),

men, women

(if the distinction still holds)

have crossed that threshold

(if it is a threshold)

passed over that bridge

(if you can call it a bridge)—

 

How many, after a shorter or longer life

(if they still see a difference),

good, because it's beginning,

bad, because it's over

(if they don't prefer the reverse),

have found themselves on the far shore

(if they found themselves at all

and if another shore exists)—

 

I've been given no assurance

as concerns their future fate

(if there is one common fate

and if it is still fate)—

 

It's all

(if that word's not too confining)

behind them now

(if not before them)—

 

How many of them leaped from rushing time

and vanished, ever more mournfully, in the distance

(if you put stock in perspective)—

 

How many

(if the question makes sense,

if one can verify a final sum

without including oneself)

have sunk into that deepest sleep

(if there's nothing deeper)—

 

See you soon.

See you tomorrow.

See you next time.

They don't want

(if they don't want) to say that anymore.

They've given themselves up to endless

(if not otherwise) silence.

They're only concerned with that

(if only that)

which their absence demands.

 

 

Die—you can't do that to a cat.

Since what can a cat do

in an empty apartment?

Climb the walls?

Rub up against the furniture?

Nothing seems different here,

but nothing is the same.

Nothing has been moved,

but there's more space.

And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

 

Footsteps on the staircase,

but they're new ones.

The hand that puts fish on the saucer

has changed, too.

 

Something doesn't start

at its usual time.

Something doesn't happen

as it should.

Someone was always, always here,

then suddenly disappeared

and stubbornly stays disappeared.

 

Every closet has been examined.

Every shelf has been explored.

Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.

A commandment was even broken:

papers scattered everywhere.

What remains to be done.

Just sleep and wait.

 

Just wait till he turns up,

just let him show his face.

Will he ever get a lesson

on what not to do to a cat.

Sidle toward him

as if unwilling

and ever so slow

on visibly offended paws,

and no leaps or squeals at least to start.

 

 

I don't reproach the spring

for starting up again.

I can't blame it

for doing what it must

year after year.

 

I know that my grief

will not stop the green.

The grass blade may bend

but only in the wind.

 

It doesn't pain me to see

that clumps of alders above the water

have something to rustle with again.

 

I take note of the fact

that the shore of a certain lake

is still—as if you were living—

as lovely as before.

 

I don't resent

the view for its vista

of a sun-dazzled bay.

 

I am even able to imagine

some non-us

sitting at this minute

on a fallen birch trunk.

 

I respect their right

to whisper, laugh,

and lapse into happy silence.

 

I can even allow

that they are bound by love

and that he holds her

with a living arm.

 

Something freshly birdish

starts rustling in the reeds.

I sincerely want them

to hear it.

 

I don't require changes

from the surf,

now diligent, now sluggish,

obeying not me.

 

I expect nothing

from the depths near the woods,

first emerald,

then sapphire,

then black.