another one

Write this down. Write it. With ordinary ink

on ordinary paper: they were not given food,

all died of hunger. All. How many?

It's a large meadow. How much grass

was there per person? Write down: I don't know.

History rounds skeletons off to the nearest zero.

A thousand and one is still a thousand.

As if this one weren't there at all:

an imaginary embryo, empty cradle,

a primer open for no one,

air which laughs and screams and grows,

stairs for the emptiness running to the garden,

nobody's place in the ranks.



We are in the meadow, where it became a body.

But the meadow is as silent as a bribed witness.

In the sunlight. Green. Over there in the forest

for chewing wood, for drinking from under bark-

a daily portion of landscape,

until one goes blind. Up there is a bird,

which moved across lips as shadow

of his nutritious wings. Jaws would open,

teeth would chomp.

At night a sickle would flash in the sky,

reaping for dreamt-up loaves.

Hands of blackened icons would fly in,

bearing empty goblets.

On a spit of barbed wire

a man was swaying.

They were singing with soil in their mouths. A lovely song

of how war gets you right in the heart.

Write about the silence here.

Yes.



-Wislawa Szymborska



Translated from the Polish by

Joanna Trzeciak