Selected poems by Maria Żaboklicka-Budzichowa, published in the Polish weekly Tygodnik Powszechny:
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Naming objects, naming events
I sometimes think that it’s necessary,
That it’s worth stopping on the way
That it’s worth looking for a formula
Which would neatly partition
And tabularise experience.
That the right words exist
That they will obey the pen
To unambiguously convey
Life’s taste and torment.
But which reality to capture
In this net of names
To “render justice
To the visible universe”?
Can suffering be tamed
By giving it a name?
Can its rhythmical recurrence
Be stopped by a powerless word?
Like a landscape painted
From the window of a speeding train
So is the attempt to string words
About life as it passes.
* *
*
In the old life there was some sort of mortar
Between the rocks
Of executed duties
There was mushroom picking
Staring out the window
Aerodynamically shaped rest.
But now the crystals
Of inescapable necessities
Joined by the unforgiving veneer
Of polished surfaces
Under ever-rising pressure
Have filled the world
With the somber crunch
Of departing lightheartedness.
* *
*
Old age arrives, at last
The time to finally be
Truly young.
No more fetching forgotten notebooks
And lunches to the girls’ school,
No more using the flu
As an excuse to paint
But most importantly
The time to finally talk about
What always mattered most
About favourite books
About the righteous life
Instead of constantly having to pretend
I’m interested in
The price of this or that, or
Affordable holiday destinations.
Hard to believe that one day
That carnival will arrive.
* *
*
Oh when will the automatic guns of haste
Stop flogging us with their bullets
As every one of the poppy seeds of
Time that flows
Time that flies
Time that cannot be stopped
Must be stabbed firmly and precisely
With a nail of successful achievement.
Like the astronaut who monitors
The mysterious controls
Shimmering in the dark of the cockpit
For signs of his looming fall
From the orbit into the remote nothingness
Of the icy universe.
And still the same question:
Did I manage to align
My responsibilities
With the ominous rhythm of the clock
And yet a day will come
When we’ll look out the window in vain
Only to see white emptiness and
No sign of returning daughters.