the romance of faith

Faith requires, as far as the romance of it goes,
A certain certainty: the blind seeing with his/her heart.
Such faith, such faith! When sober, I wonder.

But how many times in secret in deepest darkness
Did I return the call and listened for what answers. 

the little dog sits among the flowers

one day in a series of long weekdays, you get a day-off.
the one day in the week you promise yourself:  i will
sit by the window and write today.  sometimes it happens.
half the time, you are needed to do or to be something else.

you are partly obsessed with trying to keep the same
semblance of order in the house, although
you concede defeat to the dust motes.  your dogs, too,
are patient with you.  and all the books that find themselves

in the unexpected places and wheres in the house: 
all of them  in the middle of being read even though
there are no bookmarks for those who'd want
to pick them up from their innumerable places.

if you visit the bookstore today, the one with a blue door,
and a chime behind the glass, 
you'd come out with a brown paper bag again.
if you decide to stop by a coffee shop, 

all of the pages will be read--if they don't have wifi.
in which case, is near impossible.  unless.
you deliberately leave your phone
and everything else except the moneybills.

and by the glass window at the cafe, 
beside a glass of water and a mug of exoticized coffee,
you watch someone else's little dog
sit among the flowers

this beautiful day at peace.  
and you begin leafing through a page.














 

in the long run, the world, the nations, the people, the person

Organ Tuning




Someone was tuning the organ in an empty church.
In a Gothic hall a waterfall boomed.
The voices of the tortured and schoolchildren's laughter
mixed with my vertical breath.

In an empty church someone tuned the organ
and tinkered with the pipes' wild anarchy,
demolished houses, flung thunderbolts, then built
a city, airport, highway, stadium.

If only I could see the organist!
Catch sight of his face, his eyes!
If I could trace the movements of his hands,
I might understand where he's taking us,
us and those for whom we care,
children, animals, shadows.












by Adam Zagawjewski

translated by Clare Cavanagh 

day before strawberries

black saturday...




again, a plane ride away.  back in the city that is not half as strange except.  every one is away.  in places far and calling.  but every thing else.  they remain the same.  the streets and the rain trees' flowers.  the shops, no matter only half awake.  and this strange lolling of this another tongue.  a language reminding me of cottonwood bursting forth cottons.