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Poetry

[Why don’t I have]

By Bronisław Maj
Translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh

Why don’t I have
You? Why
don’t I see the trace of Your hand
in the inhumanly rational construction
of a blade of grass. The blackbirds’
song for me is only
ownerless, I can’t hear Your
hearing. I don’t hear the voice
piercing the day’s clamor. And at night,
drowned in its enormous
breath, I feel how everything
takes place from me: between
me and the blind star runs
a frosty road of terror, my measure
of infinity, which ends
with me. I can’t see
further. I can’t see, since
I believe too little that I see? Or perhaps this
is simply the thirst
to see and there’s nothing
beyond this thirst to pierce
suddenly into the day’s clamor, the cathedral
of the grass, beneath a star’s
dead eye.

English

Why don’t I have
You? Why
don’t I see the trace of Your hand
in the inhumanly rational construction
of a blade of grass. The blackbirds’
song for me is only
ownerless, I can’t hear Your
hearing. I don’t hear the voice
piercing the day’s clamor. And at night,
drowned in its enormous
breath, I feel how everything
takes place from me: between
me and the blind star runs
a frosty road of terror, my measure
of infinity, which ends
with me. I can’t see
further. I can’t see, since
I believe too little that I see? Or perhaps this
is simply the thirst
to see and there’s nothing
beyond this thirst to pierce
suddenly into the day’s clamor, the cathedral
of the grass, beneath a star’s
dead eye.

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