Poetry

Comet (1988)

Jaromir Nohavica

 I saw a comet fly across the night,
 I longed to sing to it but it vanished from my sight.
 It vanished like a deer into the forest shade,
 And in my eyes, just golden coins stayed.
 I buried those coins beneath the old oak tree,
 When it comes again, we will no longer be.
 We will no longer be, oh vanity and pride,
 I saw a comet, and I longed to sing beside.
      
 To sing
 Of water, of grass, of trees,
 Of death, with whom we still make no peace,
 Of love, of betrayal, of the world below,
 Of all the people Earth will ever know.
      
 On heaven’s station, the wagons gently chime,
 And Kepler mapped the laws of the sky, the time.
 He searched and he found, through his telescope bright,
 The truths we carry now, hidden in the night.
 The ancient and endless truths of birth:
 Only a human can bring a human to Earth,
 How the root and branch become one tree,
 And how our blood of hope flows through the galaxy.
      
 I saw a comet, carved like a fine relic
 Carved by the hands of an artist who’s no longer here.
 I climbed toward heaven, reaching to hold,
 But was stripped by futility, naked and cold.
 Like the statue of David carved in white marble stone,
 I stood and I stared, I stared up alone.
 When it comes again, oh pride laid low,
 We won’t be here — but someone else will know.
 
 To sing
 Of water, of grass, of trees,
 Of death, with whom we still make no peace,
 Of love, of betrayal, of the world below,
 Of all the people Earth will ever know.

The Elegy for... (1944)

Krzysztof Kamil Baczynski

They parted you, my little son, from dreams that fluttered near,
embroidered your sad eyes, my dear, with thread of rust and fear.
They painted fields in yellow flame, where ashes softly lie,
and stitched the sea with hanging trees beneath a burning sky.

They taught you, son, your native land—each furrow, path, and field,
you carved her roads with iron tears, with grief that would not yield.
They fed you on the bread of dread, they raised you in the night,
you walked by touch the most shameful ways known to humankind.

And then you went, my shining boy, into the dark with steel,
you felt the evil pulse of time, its cold and heavy wheel.
Before you fell, you blessed the ground, your hand a trembling arc.
Was it a bullet struck you, son, or did your heart go dark?