Map by Wisława Szymborska

forever.
Any second now.
No, not yet.
Yes, now.
The bomb, it explodes.

A Medieval Miniature
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Up the verdantest of hills,
in this most equestrian of pageants,
wearing the silkiest of cloaks.
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Toward a castle with seven towers,
each of them by far the tallest.
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In the foreground, a duke,
most flatteringly unrotund;
by his side, his duchess,
young and fair beyond compare.
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Behind them, the ladies-in-waiting,
all pretty as pictures, verily,
then a page, the most ladsome of lads,
and perched upon his pagey shoulder
something exceedingly monkeylike,
endowed with the drollest of faces
and tails.
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Following close behind, three knights,
all chivalry and rivalry,
so if the first is fearsome of countenance,
the next one strives to be more daunting still,
and if he prances on a bay steed
the third will prance upon a bayer,
and all twelve hooves dance glancingly
atop the most wayside of daisies.
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Whereas whosoever is downcast and weary,
cross-eyed and out at elbows,
is most manifestly left out of the scene.
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Even the least pressing of questions,
burgherish or peasantish,
cannot survive beneath this most azure of skies.
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And not even the eaglest of eyes
could spy even the tiniest of gallows—
nothing casts the slightest shadow of a doubt.
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Thus they proceed most pleasantly
through this feudalest of realisms.
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This same, however, has seen to the scene’s balance:
it has given them their Hell in the next frame.
Oh yes, all that went without
even the silentest of sayings.

Aging Opera Singer
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“Today he sings this way: tralala tra la.
But I sang it like this: tralala tra la.
Do you hear the difference?
And instead of standing here, he stands here
and looks this way, not this way,
although she comes flying in from over there,
not over there, and not like today rampa pampa pam,
but quite simply rampa pampa pam,
the unforgettable Tschubek-Bombonieri,
only
who remembers her now—”

In Praise of My Sister
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My sister doesn’t write poems,
and it’s unlikely that she’ll suddenly start writing poems.
She takes after her mother, who didn’t write poems,
and also her father, who likewise didn’t write poems.
I feel safe beneath my sister’s roof:
my sister’s husband would rather die than write poems.
And, even though this is starting to sound as repetitive as Peter Piper,
the truth is, none of my relatives write poems.
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My sister’s desk drawers don’t hold old poems,
and her handbag doesn’t hold new ones.
When my sister asks me over for lunch,
I know she doesn’t want to read me her poems.
Her soups are delicious without ulterior motives.
Her coffee doesn’t spill on manuscripts.
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There are many families in which nobody writes poems,
but once it starts up it’s hard to quarantine.
Sometimes poetry cascades down through the generations,
creating fatal whirlpools where family love may founder.
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My sister has tackled oral prose with some success,
but her entire written opus consists of postcards from vacations
whose text is only the same promise every year:
when she gets back, she’ll have
so much
much
much to tell.

Hermitage
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You expected a hermit to live in the wilderness,
but he has a little house and a garden,
surrounded by cheerful birch groves,
ten minutes off the highway.
Just follow the signs.
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You don’t have to gaze at him through binoculars from afar.
You can see and hear him right up close,
while he’s patiently explaining to a tour group from Wieliczka
why he’s chosen strict isolation.
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He wears a grayish habit,
and he has a long white beard,
cheeks pink as a baby’s,
and bright blue eyes.
He’ll gladly pose before the rosebush
for color photographs.
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His picture is being taken by one Stanley Kowalik of Chicago,
who promises prints once they’re developed.
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Meanwhile a tight-lipped old lady from Bydgoszcz
whom no