Map (31 page)

Understanding came only later:

not all misadventures

fit within the world's laws

and even if they wanted to,

they couldn't happen.

 

 

They say

the first love's most important.

That's very romantic,

but not my experience.

 

Something was and wasn't there between us,

something went on and went away.

 

My hands never tremble

when I stumble on silly keepsakes

and a sheaf of letters tied with string

—not even ribbon.

 

Our only meeting after years:

two chairs chatting

at a chilly table.

 

Other loves

still breathe deep inside me.

This one's too short of breath even to sigh.

 

Yet just exactly as it is,

it does what the others still can't manage:

unremembered,

not even seen in dreams,

it introduces me to death.

 

 

We have a soul at times.

No one's got it nonstop,

for keeps.

 

Day after day,

year after year

may pass without it.

 

Sometimes

it will settle for a while

only in childhood's fears and raptures.

Sometimes only in astonishment

that we are old.

 

It rarely lends a hand

in uphill tasks,

like moving furniture,

or lifting luggage,

or going miles in shoes that pinch.

 

It usually steps out

whenever meat needs chopping

or forms have to be filled.

 

For every thousand conversations

it participates in one,

if even that,

since it prefers silence.

 

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,

it slips off duty.

 

It's picky:

it doesn't like seeing us in crowds,

our hustling for a dubious advantage

and creaky machinations make it sick.

 

Joy and sorrow

aren't two different feelings for it.

It attends us

only when the two are joined.

 

We can count on it

when we're sure of nothing

and curious about everything.

 

Among the material objects

it favors clocks with pendulums

and mirrors, which keep on working

even when no one is looking.

 

It won't say where it comes from

or when it's taking off again,

though it's clearly expecting such questions.

 

We need it

but apparently

it needs us

for some reason too.

 

 

I'm still asleep,

but meanwhile facts are taking place.

The window grows white,

darknesses turn gray,

the room works its way from hazy space,

pale, shaky stripes seek its support.

 

By turns, unhurried,

since this is a ceremony,

the planes of walls and ceiling dawn,

shapes separate,

one from the other,

left to right.

 

The distances between objects irradiate,

the first glints twitter

on the tumbler, the doorknob.

Whatever had been displaced yesterday,

had fallen to the floor,

been contained in picture frames,

is no longer simply happening, but is.

Only the details

have not yet entered the field of vision.

 

But look out, look out, look out,

all indicators point to returning colors

and even the smallest thing regains its own hue

along with a hint of shadow.

 

This rarely astounds me, but it should.

I usually wake up in the role of belated witness,

with the miracle already achieved,

the day defined

and dawning masterfully recast as morning.

 

 

—Hey! the little boy wonders,

who's that lady?

 

—It's a statue of Charity,

something like that,

his mother answers.

 

—But how come that lady's

so-o-o-o beat-up?

 

—I don't know, she's always

been like that, I think.

The city should do something about it.

Get rid of it, fix it.

Well, don't dawdle, let's get going.

 

 

Out of a hundred people

 

those who always know better

—fifty-two,

 

doubting every step

—nearly all the rest,

 

glad to lend a hand

if it doesn't take too long

—as high as forty-nine,

 

always good

because they can't be otherwise

—four, well, maybe five,

 

able to admire without envy

—eighteen,

 

living in constant fear

of someone or something

—seventy-seven,

 

capable of happiness

—twenty-something tops,

 

harmless singly,

savage in crowds

—half at least,

 

cruel

when forced by circumstances

—better not to know

even ballpark figures,

 

wise after the fact

—just a couple more

than wise before it,

 

taking only things from life

—forty

(I wish I were wrong),

 

hunched in pain,

no flashlight in the dark

—eighty-three

sooner or later,

 

worthy of compassion

—ninety-nine,

 

mortal

—a hundred out of a hundred.

Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.

 

 

Some people flee some other people.

In some country under a sun

and some clouds.

 

They abandon something close to all they've got,

sown fields, some chickens, dogs,

mirrors in which fire now preens.

 

Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles.

The emptier they get, the heavier they grow.

 

What happens quietly: someone's dropping from exhaustion.

What happens loudly: someone's bread is ripped away,

someone tries to shake a limp child back to life.

 

Always another wrong road ahead of them,

always another wrong bridge

across an oddly reddish river.

Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away,

above them a plane seems to circle.

 

Some invisibility would come in handy,

some grayish stoniness,

or, better yet, some nonexistence

for a shorter or a longer while.

 

Something else will happen, only where and what.

Someone will come at them, only when and who,

in how many shapes, with what intentions.

If he has a choice,

maybe he won't be the enemy

and will let them live some sort of life.

 

 

They jumped from the burning floors—

one, two, a few more,

higher, lower.

 

The photograph halted them in life,

and now keeps them

above the earth toward the earth.

 

Each is still complete,

with a particular face

and blood well hidden.

 

There's enough time

for hair to come loose,

for keys and coins

to fall from pockets.

 

They're still within the air's reach,

within the compass of places

that have just now opened.

 

I can do only two things for them—

describe this flight

and not add a last line.

 

 

The cemetery plot for tiny graves.

We, the long lived, pass by furtively,

like wealthy people passing slums.

 

Here lie little Zosia, Jacek, Dominik,

prematurely stripped of the sun, the moon,

the clouds, the turning seasons.

 

They didn't stash much in their return bags.

Some scraps of sights

that scarcely count as plural.

A fistful of air with a butterfly flitting.

A spoonful of bitter knowledge—the taste of medicine.

 

Small-scale naughtiness,

granted, some of it fatal.

Gaily chasing the ball across the road.

The happiness of skating on thin ice.