Cyprian
Norwid
This street - a street
In any city: over them all the cross.
Window-panes, juggling sunlight, sometimes cheat
Twinkling like cat's eyes but no mouse to toss.
Pedestrians, in mournful black, go by
The stoic's color, but
They shout, rush, crush, stifle each other, cry,
Each in his jostled rut.
Two forces only, and two gestures here
Factory owners search despair - (for fun?) -
Then those who work, and fifty times a year
Gloat over what they've won.
Two tremors and two images, just two
Buy property in heaven before you're dead
Or manufacture ecstasy with a few
Crusts of stale bread.
An Arab, in his priestly clothes, goes by,
A ray of stillness in the rush of clouds.
He is carved ivory. My eye can rest.
Let its repose be proud.
And then a funeral. At last no rush.
The side-street crowd respects death's dignity.
I follow it. My fretful gestures hush.
Here let me rest my eye.
O fellow creatures with no fellows, I
Plunge through my thoughts above you - no great loss.
A small balloon glints in the blue sky.
And through the clouds? Yes. Yes. It is the cross.
Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer
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