She Does Not Remember
She was an evil stepmother.
In her old age she is slowly dying
in an empty hovel.
She shudders
like a clutch of burnt paper.
She does not remember that she was evil.
But she knows
that she feels cold.
Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
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poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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He Was Lucky
The old man
leaves his house, carries books.
A German soldier snatches his books
flings them in the mud.
The old man picks them up,
the soldier hits him in the face.
The old man falls,
the soldier kicks him and walks away.
The old man
lies in mud and blood.
Under him he feels
the books.
poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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The Sea And The Man
You will not tame this sea
either by humility or rapture.
But you can laugh
in its face.
Laughter
was invented by those
who live briefly
as a burst of laughter.
The eternal sea
will never learn to laugh.
Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
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poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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The Greatest Love
She is sixty. She lives
the greatest love of her life.
She walks arm-in-arm with her dear one,
her hair streams in the wind.
Her dear one says:
"You have hair like pearls."
Her children say:
"Old fool."
Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
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poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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The Second Madrigal
A night of love
exquisite as a
concert from old Venice
played on exquisite instruments.
Healthy as a
buttock of a little angel.
Wise as an
anthill.
Garish as air
blown into a trumpet.
Abundant as the reign
of a royal Negro couple
seated on two thrones
cast in gold.
A night of love with you,
a big baroque battle
and two victories.
poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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Happy as a Dog's Tail
Happy as something unimportant
and free as a thing unimportant.
As something no one prizes
and which does not prize itself.
As something mocked by all
and which mocks at their mockery.
As laughter without serious reason.
As a yell able to outyell itself.
Happy as no matter what,
as any no matter what.
Happy
as a dog’s tail.
poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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The Same Inside
Walking to your place for a love fest
I saw at a street corner
an old beggar women.
I took her hand,
kissed her delicate cheek,
we talked, she was
the same inside as I am,
from the same kind,
I sensed this instantly
as a dog knows by scent
another dog.
I gave her money,
I could not part from her.
After all, one needs
someone who is close.
And then I no longer knew
why I was walking to your place.
poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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Myself and my Person
There are moments
when I feel more clearly than ever
that I am in the company
of my own person.
This comforts and reassures me,
this heartens me,
just as my tridimensional body
is heartened by my own authentic shadow.
There are moments
when I really feel more clearly than ever
that I am in the company
of my own person.
I stop
at a street corner to turn left
and I wonder what would happen
if my own person walked to the right.
Until now that has not happened
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poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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I Knocked my Head Against the Wall
As a child
I put my finger in the fire
to become
a saint.
As a teenager
every day I would knock my head against the wall.
As a young girl
I went out through a window of a garret
to the roof
in order to jump.
As a woman
I had lice all over my body.
They cracked when I was ironing my sweater.
I waited sixty minutes
to be executed.
I was hungry for six years.
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poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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I’ll Open the Window
Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right down to the bone.
I hear the bones grind, I see
our two skeletons.
Now I am waiting
till you leave, till
the clatter of your shoes
is heard no more. Now, silence.
Tonight I am going to sleep alone
on the bedclothes of purity.
Aloneness
is the first hygienic measure.
Aloneness
will enlarge the walls of the room,
I will open the window
and the large, frosty air will enter,
healthy as tragedy.
Human thoughts will enter
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poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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