| Boleslaw Lesmian (1878-1937) |
| In the Dark
The lip is the lip's friend, the hand the hand's Lying next each other each one understands To whom he belongs - each one of the buried dead. Unwillingly the night goes overhead; The earth asserts itself, but hesitantly ; And leaflessly the leaves move on a tree. God stirs the wind and space: but He is high Above the forest's distant forest sigh. The wind says this to space: "I'll not be back Across this forest while the night shines black." Still darkness thickens, pierced by small starlight. The seagulls flying over the sea are white. One says : "I've heard the fate of stars foretold." The next: "I've watched the heavens themselves unfold." The third is silent, but because it knew Two bodies, glowing in the darkness, who Wove darkness into their embrace: it found Them made of the caress in which they wound. Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer |
| Brother
You would not take my hand. The dawn glow Made the world alter. At that moment your brother called to you. For a second you faltered. You ran to him and came back. He was dead. Fate, for the clouds, shone golden. "Now I belong only to you," you said. Your voice broke and rolled on. Without a glance at you, I asked: "Did he know?" "Yes," you replied. Outside, giving thoughts distance, aslant, aflow, The bird, as always, glided. Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer |
| The Cemetery
He reached the graveyard, - grass, death, oblivion,- He who had noticed how the world goes on. It must have been a graveyard for dead ships. He heard shrouds snarl under the wind's whips Yet quietness unravelled from the grass. He let his silence into that silence pass. And shaped from air a cross among the birds While the first tombstone let him read these words "I did not die by chance but through the will Of winds that found in me an easy kill. They promised me safe anchor in my death, Death in that anchorage : now they break faith. The winds persist, and shipwreck underground. New fears, not those I lost with life, resound. Though slack with nothingness my buried forms Are still judged worth their steerage through those storms. Who blows the wind that makes my mainsails pout? Why is a ship, once started, always out ? I can say only that, without life, this hull Plods sleeplessly, and misery bakes the skull. For more than plain endurance none can pray, But pray for me to Mary, traveller, pray." He plucked some leaves and gave them to the air, Then knelt, and three times prayed that formal prayer. Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer |
| Tango
A nowhere sailing golden boat, A lilac shore – and my dismay. Let’s glide in tandem, like two ships, Not looking at the gleaming floor. |
| Memories
Those paths I brushed With the feet of a child - where have they gone ? They roll down as tears do, hushed, Out of the eyes, down, down. The freshness of morning would wake me up. The sun would be painting a masterpiece. A golden coast - a golden pup, A golden guitar - a golden precipice. Stare. Stare sufficiently into the light From the midst of a great silence, and in a while You are bound to see a camel shining bright, A bright-eyed robber with a glistening smile. At breakfast the table became a desert. I stared Till I rode the camel and I saw the gleaming thief. Father, assured of his safety, never despaired But read his paper calmly, rustling a leaf. A triple rainbow embroidered the carafe, The tablecloth, the cupboard, father's moustache. A wasp, entangled in the lace curtains, would laugh And the curtains laughed too, their threads in the sun, a bright patch. And the rich floor, dreamily glittering, mirrored it all The leaves of the palm shone brighter at the back But melted shallowly, and a thin glaze would fall As if someone had spilled greenery by mistake. The arm-chair sipping its own velvet peace Would grow heavier, comfortably, I think. The sugar would plot for a blue spark's release And the loaf of bread would turn pink. The clock shakes free of its long compressed coils and booms A prolonged note through the hall to the sky. In that furnished day-dreaming among the sunny rooms Everybody endures and does not die. But something happened: something went wrong. The same clock struck, but shyly, in another town. The soul stumbled over the body that had grown too strong, And they began to die, one by one. Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer |
| …
Were I to meet you again for the first time, But in a different orchard, in a different wood— Perhaps for us the trees would sigh differently, Extended into infinity under a misty hood... Perhaps among the furrowed green you'd reach your hands For other flowers, trembling as they were birds— Perhaps from your undiscerning, unknowing lips Would fall some other words—some other words... Perhaps into a cascade of flaming roses The sun would force our souls to burst for good, Were I to meet you again for the first time, But in a different orchard, in a different wood...” |
|
|