Lines for a Lockdown: 'Blessed are those who carry'

Those Who Carry

Those who carry grand pianos

to the tenth floor wardrobes and coffins

the old man with a bundle of wood hobbling toward the horizon

the lady with a hump of nettles

the madwoman pushing her baby carriage

full of empty vodka bottles

they will all be raised up

like a seagull’s feather like a dry leaf

Blessed are those who carry

for they will be raised

                             by Anna Kamieńska

from Astonishments, Selected Poems of Anna Kamieńska, edited and translated by Grażyna Drabik and David Curzon, Paraclete Press, 2007.

The Lamp

Anna Kamieńska

The Lamp

I write in order to comprehend not to express myself
I don’t grasp anything I’m not ashamed to admit it
sharing this not knowing with a maple leaf
So I turn with questions to words wiser than myself
to things that will endure long after us
I wait to gain wisdom from chance
I expect sense from silence
Perhaps something will suddenly happen
and pulse with hidden truth
like the spirit of the flame in the oil lamp
under which we bowed our heads
when we were very young
and grandmas crossed the bread with a knife
and we believed in everything
So now I yearn for nothing so much
as for that faith

Translated from Polish by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson

from Astonishments, Selected Poems of Anna Kamieńska, edited and translated by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson, Paraclete Press, 2007.