ABOUT PASSING

A poem for Judyta wasn’t about Judyta. So many myths and truths
I would need to write down for her to wake up in the morning, several days,
several years later. She blessed the children
for sprouted grains to grow higher and higher.
Gurgling is cleansing of a kind, spitting out
tumours, nightmares, chains she got entangled into.

No, it wasn’t about Judyta. She believes in anointment, or perhaps
I don’t believe in it and that is why I remember Grandma’s whole list of requests.
Therefore I look carefully, try to focus on proportions of the fluids,
devil mocks the details. Or strolls among them
and rumbles in bellies. He legs it when we lose memory and start

from scratch. Living with the mother superior, the husband, somebody
wed. How many times have you soaked
your feet in vinegar and rubbed your forehead with your fingers. And it was as if
somebody scrubbed
your brain with this sponge, pulling thorns or hammering nails in blindly.
For yours, for mine, drink up. Drink, it might be easier to murder fear this way.

Suddenly it smells like elderflower all around.
It’s ok to disagree, after all Judyta is in the queue in your place.
She gets up, sings Lauds and waits. Little Office draws birds,
calls upon shoals of fish. Words from the Bible join
the chain of events.

Each saint dies differently and later accompanies us in bars,
offices. They hide secrets behind paintings and plaques.
They stare into the distance, silent. There is more and more of them,
and above them the starry heavens?



Wiersz przetłumaczyła Anna Błasiak  
można go doszukać w tomie Mullaghmore, strona 22 
Wiersz - klik

Wspominam Judytę. Zmarła 2 stycznia 2015, mam ją blisko. Możliwe, że niektórzy z Was ją pamiętają.