the steady rhythm

There is a steady rhythm in the pulse of the universe.
This I believe 
At the same time I believe

The necessary erratic erranty of the cosmos.
The Great Barrier Reef is dead
And the thousands of salmon continue living

Their lives all about the long return.
So ours, also, must be.

From where to where, from whom to whom, the definitions
May not be necessary.
What is it that we truly long for?

That which is repeated over and over lying between
All the lines and names and breaths
Including the time we stare at the seemingly 

Boundless sea.
Have we moved enough yet? 

Farther or closer who is to know.

what comes next

What comes next is not unknown. It is 
as clear as a clear sky day, sky like glass
blue like you can see through it and what lies
beyond, those blue green fields of cornflowers
a tree, a rainbow, an eternal outdoor
picnic like we dreamed to do on Sundays.
What Sunday-school picture books all say.

What comes next is not unknown. All told
from the pulpit, how the world will become
dust, like flesh into ash, the questions.
Only the living left bereft.

My papers are sent. The board to convene.
Meanwhile. 
I pretend not to pay attention 
to the arthritic bloom in my finger joints.

When I was younger and younger, 
palm to palm my fingers could mimic
the grace of a swimming fish's tail.
I could move one or both ears...

Such feat for a twelve year old!

What comes next is not unknown. 
I tell my dog we will see the vet on Sunday.
Meanwhile I recover from my own bout
with flu. The days are numbered.
What comes next is not unknown.

Only the heart is scared. Brave only by
closing its eyes. To leap into the known.

sisyphus

the old universe must be tired.  from watching us.  we all are a repeat.  a too long television series with the same themes.  we seem never to learn.  if anything, the old universe must be only entertained by our indefatigable attempts to rise beyond ourselves.

on questions with no answers

1.

this business with poetry.  almost no wonder why 
poets were sent away from the republic.
all questioning that could, on any day, be meant
to mean subverting  what has been 
a long held belief.  e.g. the world is flat. 


2.

this city is connected to the others by two steel bridges.
mornings and evenings, people fall into long, long, long lines:
all in a hurry to leave at first light
all in a hurry to return by dusk fall.
they all curse under their breaths in between.


3.

in poetry reading class, the students' thoughts
are thick like fabric.  the professor has opened
a window, has let something in: 
postmodernism:  a poem in footnote form;
gender theory:  a poem on the satire of normative roles;
philosophy:  a poem on memory's palimpsestic quality.

the students' thoughts
clutch their bibles, reciting verses.

not one of them has ever seen a firefly.




 

Blake on graying streets

Blake




I watch William Blake, who spotted angels
every day in treetops
and met God on the staircase
of his little house and found light in grimy alleys--

Blake, who died
singing gleefully
in a London thronged
with streetwalkers, admirals, and miracles,

William Blake, engraver, who labored
and lived in poverty, but not despair,
who received burning signs
from the sea and from the starry sky,

who never lost hope, since hope
was always born anew like breath,
I see those who walked like him on graying streets,
headed toward the dawn's rosy orchid.










by Adam Zagajewski

translated by Clare Cavanagh