Try to Praise the Mutilated World

(The Island by Annelisse Molini, artist born 1966 in Puerto Rico)

“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”

~ C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity

TRY TO PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

~ Adam Zagajewski, born 1945, Polish poet

Iron Train

(Paris Café, 1924, by Eugène Atget, 1857-1927, French
photographer)

“At first I was afraid of going to places where H. and I had been happy — our favorite pub, our favorite wood,” wrote C. S. Lewis in his book A Grief Observed. “But I decided to do it at once — like sending a pilot up again as soon as possible after he’s had a crash. Unexpectedly, it makes no difference. Her absence is no more emphatic in those places than anywhere else. It’s not local at all. . . . Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.”

IRON TRAIN

The train stopped at a little station
and for a moment stood absolutely still.
The doors slammed, gravel crunched underfoot,
someone said goodbye forever,

a glove dropped, the sun dimmed,
the doors slammed again, even louder,
and the iron train set off slowly
and vanished in the fog like the nineteenth century.

~ Adam Zagajewski, born 1945, Polish poet who now teaches in the U.S.

Defending Poetry, etc.

(Provincetown by Childe Hassam, 1859-1935,
American Impressionist painter)

The poet here is providing an answer — but what was the question?

DEFENDING POETRY, ETC.

Yes, defending poetry, high style, etc.,
but also summer evenings in a small town,
where gardens waft and cats sit quietly
on doorsteps, like Chinese philosophers.

~ Adam Zagajewski, born 1945, Polish poet who now teaches in the U.S.