Cecilia Woloch
author photo: Mark Savage
(USA)
LETTER FROM IRENA WISZNIEWSKA IN WARSAW, IN WINTER,
TRANSLATED LOOSELY FROM THE FRENCH
Dear Migratory Bird —
You wrote, « It is only when I travel when I manage to follow my soul. »
This is so true, because it means this « âme » (the French prefer
to speak about « the spirit ») not only is in movement
but is more in movement independent from our will.
The destination is less important than the pleasure one takes in moving through space.
Recently, it is a sentence of Japanese, Matsuo Basho, author of haiku,
who stopped (arrested) me. Here she is:
« Every day is a journey and the journey is itself a house. »
My farm is 100 km from Warsaw, derisory distance,
but that saves me from the home-body life that would have killed my soul —
or, if you prefer, would have withered (branded) my spirit.
At home, nothing interesting. The winter beats its full
and the cockroach follows. Even Mishka, my bitch, has bad hair.
But spring is soon — the thought enchants me
and, at the same time, distresses me.
And this anguish is like a small delicious cake
for my winter sadness.
If you see Jorge, pass on to him my best regards.
And if I would write him a small word, to say
I did not know that he has such a beautiful moustache.
To us it snows but that gives a luminosity to the sky.
The crystal air has something of cleansing that lights the head.
But difficult to imagine that there were still some days
I walked barefoot by the sea.
Kisses and North Winds,
Irena
from CARPATHIA (Boa Editions 2009)
POUR VIVIENNE
C’est l’heure, little wren,
little shadow on horseback,
wing of black hair,
little Vivienne.
C’est ton père —
like a bell being rung:
C’est ton père, c’est ton père.
Il est mort, Vivienne.
What must your mother
have said meaning
gone and forever,
your father, your prince?
How must the news have struck
when she woke you to tell you:
son coeur
s’est arrêté —?
In which language
can such words be spoken
and not break the spell
of the sleeping child?
Leur princesse,
sur son cheval chéri.
And how will you run again,
small vivid one?
Long-legged,
smelling of grass,
pony and miracle,
wild rush of sun—
as he dreamed of you,
dreamed of you once,
as he dreams now
flying over the field.
from LATE (Boa Editions 2003)
DZIEN DOBRY
“Exile is an uncomfortable situation. It is also a magical situation.”
— Helene Cixous
In Rzepnik — a village
of maybe twenty families
strewn across hillsides, fields
on the banks of the river
named Merk, as in Dark,
in the lower Carpathians (end
of the world) — each house
with its weary cow, its chickens
scratching the dirt in the yard;
each window its white
lace curtains; each morning
its light — in the glorified
shed my friends call
home (bare floors
swept with a broom made
of twigs; bathwater heated
at night on the stove) —
where I woke late
one spring day, having dreamt
through the clamour of church bell
and bird-cry, alone,
into absence and hush
(where had everyone gone?) —
the front door ajar and the fire
unstirred; the faint hum of flies
buzzing over the wreckage
of breakfast — half-eaten
apple, brown bread, tin of fish —
where I had grown thin
on a diet of grief, unspeakable
consonants caught
in my throat — no word
from my love in that far
other world, nothing
in weeks that did not
taste of ash — and, sighing
put on the kettle to boil
(rat in the well last year)
rinsed out my cup, then,
sensing someone behind me, turned
to whomever had entered
(no murmur, no knock)
and waited in silence:
the neighbor, Kasczyk —
a man I’d watched bent
at his work in the fields
and thought: I know nothing,
some book in my lap — strange
to these villagers, strange
to myself — lost,
with no language
to speak to him now
as he stood in that shimmer
of sunlight and dust, boots
caked with mud, body
worn as a blade
— almost transparent —
fresh eggs in his hands:
the shells tinged
with blue and still warm,
I could tell, by the way
he was holding them, cupped
in his palms, the moment
I felt him there — (shift
in the air) in my stubborness,
bitterness, terror of filth —
and facing him, wordlessly,
nodded my head.
Dobry, he said,
at last: good, and was gone —
only sun on the table,
his gift of fresh eggs.
Dzien I called out
to the bright, empty room —
having meant to say
thank you, dziekuje,
and said only dzien, only
day, for dzien dobry,
good day — when I woke
to the grace of eat that
which is offered, knew,
in that light, where to turn.
from LATE (Boa Editions 2003)
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BIO
Cecilia Woloch is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Carpathia (BOA Editions 2009) and Earth (Two Sylvias Press 2015), as well as a novel, Sur la Route (Quale Press 2015). Her awards include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, and prizes from the Indiana review and the New Ohio Review, among others. Based in Los Angeles, she spends half of each year on the road and teaches throughout the U.S. and around the world.