Map (30 page)

as the fire draws near.

 

A grass blade trampled by a stampede

of incomprehensible events.

 

A shady type whose darkness

dazzled some.

 

What if I'd prompted only fear,

loathing,

or pity?

 

If I'd been born

in the wrong tribe,

with all roads closed before me?

 

Fate has been kind

to me thus far.

 

I might never have been given

the memory of happy moments.

 

My yen for comparison

might have been taken away.

 

I might have been myself minus amazement,

that is,

someone completely different.

 

 

I'd have to be really quick

to describe clouds—

a split second's enough

for them to start being something else.

 

Their trademark:

they don't repeat a single

shape, shade, pose, arrangement.

 

Unburdened by memory of any kind,

they float easily over the facts.

 

What on earth could they bear witness to?

They scatter whenever something happens.

 

Compared to clouds,

life rests on solid ground,

practically permanent, almost eternal.

 

Next to clouds

even a stone seems like a brother,

someone you can trust,

while they're just distant, flighty cousins.

 

Let people exist if they want,

and then die, one after another:

clouds simply don't care

what they're up to

down there.

 

And so their haughty fleet

cruises smoothly over your whole life

and mine, still incomplete.

 

They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone.

They don't have to be seen while sailing on.

 

 

Against a grayish sky

a grayer cloud

rimmed black by the sun.

 

On the left, that is, the right,

a white cherry branch with black blossoms.

 

Light shadows on your dark face.

You'd just taken a seat at the table

and put your hands, gone gray, upon it.

 

You look like a ghost

who's trying to summon up the living.

 

(And since I still number among them,

I should appear to him and tap:

good night, that is, good morning,

farewell, that is, hello.

And not grudge questions to any of his answers

concerning life,

that storm before the calm.)

 

 

I dream that I'm woken

by the telephone.

 

I dream the certainty

that someone dead is calling.

 

I dream that I reach

for the receiver.

 

Only the receiver's

not how it used to be,

it's gotten heavy

as if it had grabbed onto something,

grown into something,

and wrapped its roots around it.

I'd have to rip the whole Earth

out with it.

 

I dream my useless

struggles.

 

I dream the quiet,

since the ringing's stopped.

 

I dream I fall asleep

and wake up again.

 

 

When I pronounce the word Future,

the first syllable already belongs to the past.

 

When I pronounce the word Silence,

I destroy it.

 

When I pronounce the word Nothing,

I make something no nonbeing can hold.

 

 

Our one-sided acquaintance

grows quite nicely.

 

I know what a leaf, petal, ear, cone, stalk is,

what April and December do to you.

 

Although my curiosity is not reciprocal,

I specially stoop over some of you,

and crane my neck at others.

 

I've got a list of names for you:

maple, burdock, hepatica,

mistletoe, heath, juniper, forget-me-not,

but you have none for me.

 

We're traveling together.

But fellow passengers usually chat,

exchange remarks at least about the weather,

or about the stations rushing past.

 

We wouldn't lack for topics: we've got a lot in common.

The same star keeps us in its reach.

We cast shadows based on the same laws.

We try to understand things, each in our own way,

and what we don't know brings us closer too.

 

I'll explain as best I can, just ask me:

what seeing with two eyes is like,

what my heart beats for,

and why my body isn't rooted down.

 

But how to answer unasked questions,

while being furthermore a being so totally

a nobody to you.

 

Undergrowth, coppices, meadows, rushes—

everything I tell you is a monologue,

and it's not you who listens.

 

Talking with you is essential and impossible.

Urgent in this hurried life

and postponed to never.

 

 

For unclear reasons

under unknown circumstances

Ideal Being ceased to be satisfied.

 

It could have gone on forever,

hewn from darkness, forged from light,

in its sleepy gardens above the world.

 

Why on earth did it start seeking thrills

in the bad company of matter?

 

What use could it have for imitators,

inept, ill-starred,

lacking all prospects for eternity?

 

Wisdom limping

with a thorn stuck in its heel?

Harmony derailed

by roiling waters?

Beauty

holding unappealing entrails

and Good—

why the shadow

when it didn't have one before?

 

There must have been some reason,

however slight,

but even the Naked Truth, busy ransacking

the earth's wardrobe,

won't betray it.

 

Not to mention, Plato, those appalling poets,

litter scattered by the breeze from under statues,

scraps from that great Silence up on high . . .

 

 

She's been in this world for over a year,

and in this world not everything's been examined

and taken in hand.

 

The subject of today's investigation

is things that don't move by themselves.

 

They need to be helped along,

shoved, shifted,

taken from their place and relocated.

 

They don't all want to go, e.g., the bookshelf,

the cupboard, the unyielding walls, the table.

 

But the tablecloth on the stubborn table

—when well seized by its hems—

manifests a willingness to travel.

 

And the glasses, plates,

creamer, spoons, bowl,

are fairly shaking with desire.

 

It's fascinating,

what form of motion will they take,

once they're trembling on the brink:

will they roam across the ceiling?

fly around the lamp?

hop onto the windowsill and from there to a tree?

 

Mr. Newton still has no say in this.

Let him look down from the heavens and wave his hand.

 

This experiment must be completed.

And it will.

 

 

We were chatting

and suddenly stopped short.

A lovely girl stepped onto the terrace,

so lovely,

too lovely

for us to enjoy our trip.

 

Basia shot her husband a stricken look.

Krystyna took Zbyszek's hand

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.

 

 

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.