Account
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes. Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness, Like the flight of a moth which, had it known, Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s
Incantation
Human reason is beautiful and invincible. No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books, No sentence of banishment can prevail against it. It establishes the universal ideas in language, And guides our hand
A Poem For the End of the Century
When everything was fine And the notion of sin had vanished And the earth was ready In universal peace To consume and rejoice Without creeds and utopias, I, for unknown reasons, Surrounded by the
Unde Malum
Where does evil come from? It comes From man Always from man Only from man – Tadeusz Rozewicz Alas, dear Tadeusz, Good nature and wicked man Are romantic inventions You show us this way
Forget
Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting. Sometimes you hear a distant
Ars Poetica?
I have always aspired to a more spacious form That would be free from the claims of poetry or prose And would let us understand each other without exposing The author or reader to
Encounter
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn. A red wing rose in the darkness. And suddenly a hare ran across the road. One of us pointed to it with his
Dedication
You whom I could not save Listen to me. Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another. I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words. I speak
I Sleep a Lot
I sleep a lot and read St. Thomas Aquinas Or The Death of God (that’s a Protestant book). To the right the bay as if molten tin, Beyond the bay, city, beyond the city,
Song on the End of the World
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A Fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is
A Task
In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life Only if I brought myself to make a public confession Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch: We were permitted to
Magpiety
The same and not quite the same, I walked through oak forests Amazed that my Muse, Mnemosyne, Has in no way diminished my amazement. A magpie was screeching and I said: Magpiety? What is
Woe!
It is true, our tribe is similar to the bees, It gathers honey of wisdom, carries it, stores it in honeycombs. I am able to roam for hours Through the labyrinth of the main
At a Certain Age
We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers. White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind Was too busy visiting sea after sea. We did not succeed in interesting the
What Does It Mean
It does not know it glitters It does not know it flies It does not know it is this not that. And, more and more often, agape, With my Gauloise dying out, Over a