KRYSTYNA KONECKA

KRYSTYNA KONECKA

PARIS... PARIS...
CHINESE DISTRICT

Recognizing at dawn Poniatowski Boulevard,
Marie Curie Square as well as the Vistula Street
we enter unexpectedly – the Chinese District
the mass of faces, passages, buzz and towers’ whirl.

Here, different than at our place, temples and dragons
are clinging to the ground. Underneath the winged rooftop
prayers are inconceivable as ideographs.
In the Tang brothers’ market I vanish in the crowd,

I listen to the bees’ turmoil. I grab with chopsticks
something delicious (oh, Buddha, please take care of us!)
and I do not understand. Because - how many bees hide

behind thousands of windows? Where is their Queen Mother?
In the Year of the Rabbit - why am I moved so much
by the bustle of Confucius’ Parisian children...



Translated by Ewa Sherman










INTERVIEW WITH SHADOW. I

I was born with a humpback. No chance for the treatment.
The diagnosis was severe but unambiguous.
Little later consciousness - becoming the hallmark.
Shadow of the hump condemned the whole generation.

We listened unwearyingly. We grew up in silence.
Hump swelled monstrously, gravitated recklessly,
till we began to scream in despair entanglements
just as they did. And the dream heaped up with the horror.

Today I know. Through the mothers’ bellies we saw all
that our children absorb from the vitreous screen.
There is difference in the methods and destinations.

Milk. Bread full of summer will be given for dinner.
Terror. Deluge. Aggression against the black people.
However, everything is in order. Good night, son..

Translated by Ewa Sherman









BODHISATTVA

The sun falls just like the tern over the Yellow Sea.
And more impatiently over the Sea of Japan.
Fragility of the beach, too. Korean village
and wind. That cradled me into exotic haven.

And also female shamans’ dark prayers before dawn.
Esoteric temple made of diamonds by the sea.
And when I'm about to go, tiny bodhisattva
sporting a smile from nephrite is touching my hair.

It’s unbelievable. But I do not know – what faith.
From whom did I receive gift of journeys under sky?
Why the choice came down to me among other millions?

On which side of the firmament does my angel soar?
And so why is it me, and not someone else close by,
that is smiling to Buddha from the nephrite beach.

Translated by Ewa Sherman


Krystyna Konecka
Poland, Polish, Bialystok




No comments:

Post a Comment