Thoughts and opinions from a Priest in the PNCC
There is a garden
enchanted,
of snowy waves
through which we walk.Although great frost
and shower of snow,
the ears of snowmen
never freeze.
Translation by Dcn. Jim
Jest taki ogród
zaczarowany,
po którym chodzą
śnieżne bałwany.Choć mróz największy
i śnieżek prószy,
bałwanom nigdy
nie marzną uszy.
There’s hanging moss
And holly
And tall straight pine
About this little cabin
In the wood.Inside
A crackling fire,
Warm red wine,
And youth and life
And laughter
That is good.Outside
The world is gloomy,
The winds of winter cold,
As down the road
A wandering poet
Must roam.But here there’s peace
And laughter
And love’s old story told
Where two people
Make a home.
Stay beautiful
But don’t stay down underground too
Long
Don’t turn into a mole
Or a worm
Or a root
Or a stoneCome on out into the sunlight
Breathe in trees.
Knock out mountains
Commune with snakes
& be the very hero of birds.Don’t forget to poke your head up
& blink
Walk all around
Swim upstreamDon’t forget to fly.
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.I love you only because it’s you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.
Translation unattributed
Sabrás que no te amo y que te amo
puesto que de dos modos es la vida,
la palabra es un ala del silencio,
el fuego tiene una mitad de frío.Yo te amo para comenzar a amarte,
para recomenzar el infinito
y para no dejar de amarte nunca:
por eso no te amo todavía.Te amo y no te amo como si tuviera
en mis manos las llaves de la dicha
y un incierto destino desdichado.Mi amor tiene dos vidas para armarte.
Por eso te amo cuando no te amo
y por eso te amo cuando te amo.
To be a boxer, or not to be there
at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds?
Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare
it’s time to start this cultural affair.
Half came inside because it started raining,
the rest are relatives. O Muse.
The women here would love to rant and rave,
but that’s for boxing. Here they must behave.
Dante’s Infemo is ringside nowadays.
Likewise his Paradise. O Muse.Oh, not to be a boxer but a poet,
one sentenced to hard shelleying for life,
for lack of muscles forced to show the world
the sonnet that may make the high-school reading lists
with luck. O Muse,
O bobtailed angel, Pegasus.In the first row, a sweet old man’s soft snore:
he dreams his wife’s alive again. What’s more,
she’s making him that tart she used to bake.
Aflame, but carefully-don’t burn his cake!
we start to read. O Muse.
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
Muzo, nie być bokserem to jest nie być wcale.
Ryczącej publiczności poskąpiłaś nam.
Dwanaście osób jest na sali,
już czas, żebyśmy zaczynali.
Połowa przyszła, bo deszcz pada,
reszta to krewni. Muzo.Kobiety rade zemdleć w ten jesienny wieczór,
zrobią to, ale tylko na bokserskim meczu.
dantejskie sceny tylko tam.
I wniebobranie. MuzoNie być bokserem, być poetą,
mieć wyrok skazujący na ciężkie norwidy,
z braku muskulatury demonstrować światu
przyszłą lekturę szkolną-w najszczęśliwszym razie-
o Muzo. O Pegazie,
aniele koński.W pierwszym rządku staruszek slodko sobie śni,
że mu żona nieboszczka z grobu wstała i
upiecze staruszkowi placek ze śliwkami.
Z ogniem, ale niewielkim, bo placek się spali,
zaczynamy czytanie. Muzo.
Fellow compositors
and pressworkers!I, Chief Printer
Frank Steinman,
having worked fifty-
seven years at my trade,
and served five years
as president
of the Holliston
Printer’s Council,
being of sound mind
though near death,
leave this testimonial
concerning the nature
of printers’ errors.First: I hold that all books
and all printed
matter have
errors, obvious or no,
and that these are their
most significant moments,
not to be tampered with
by the vanity and folly
of ignorant, academic
textual editors.
Second: I hold that there are
three types of errors, in ascending
order of importance:
One: chance errors
of the printer’s trembling hand
not to be corrected incautiously
by foolish professors
and other such rabble
because trembling is part
of divine creation itself.Two: silent, cool sabotage
by the printer,
the manual laborer
whose protests
have at times taken this
historical form,
covert interferences
not to be corrected
censoriously by the hand
of the second and far
more ignorant saboteur,
the textual editor.
Three: errors
from the touch of God,
divine and often
obscure corrections
of whole books by
nearly unnoticed changes
of single letters
sometimes meaningful but
about which the less said
by preemptive commentary
the better.
Third: I hold that all three
sorts of error,
errors by chance,
errors by workers’ protest,
and errors by
God’s touch,
are in practice the
same and indistinguishable.Therefore I,
Frank Steinman,
typographer
for thirty-seven years,
and cooperative Master
of the Holliston Guild
eight years,
being of sound mind and body
though near death
urge the abolition
of all editorial work
whatsoever
and manumission
from all textual editing
to leave what was
as it was, and
as it became,
except insofar as editing
is itself an error, andtherefore also divine.
this place.
this is where I am growing. this is where I can sing.
this is where I try. where I lose
this place. not the table. not
the chair. not even
this house.those people.
this is what they trust. this is where they are waiting.
these are the windows from which they keep watch over me
day after day.
a recognizable coat. a familiar walk.
this is the door I knock at every day.this place.
deprives me utterly
of all the other places open to me
in the world.
Translated by Donald Pirie
A wooden spoon for stirring jam,
Dripping sweet tar, while in the pan
Plum magma’s bubbles blather.
For someone who can’t grasp the whole
There’s salvation in the remembered detail.
What, back then, did I know about that?
The real, hard as a diamond,
Was to happen in the indefinable
Future, and everything seemed
Only a sign of what was to come. How naïve.
Now I know inattention is an unforgivable sin
And each particle of time has an ultimate dimension.
Translated by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough
Łyżka drewniana do mieszania powideł,
Ociekająca słodką smołą, kiedy w rondlu
Bełkoce bąblami śliwkowa magma,
I dla kogoś, kto nie może objąć całości,
Jaki taki ratunek w zapamiętanym szczególe.
Bo, ostatecznie, cóż o nich wiedziałem ?
Prawdziwe, o twardości diamentu, miało się
Przecież dopiero wydarzyć w nieokreślonej bliżej
Przyszłości i, jak mi się wydawało, wszystko dotychczasowe
Było jedynie zapowiedzią tamtego. Naiwny. Teraz wiem,
Że nieuwaga jest grzechem nie do wybaczenia
A każda drobina czasu ma wymiar ostateczny.
Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers–silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Christian vocal ensemble One Voice will perform at 2 p.m. Sunday at Holy Trinity Polish National Catholic Church, 200 Grace St., Stowe-McKees Rock, PA. A freewill offering will be taken, with reception to follow. Call 412-760-4558 for more information.