(no subject)

[paleorion.livejournal.com]

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

e. e. cummings

Czeslaw Milosz

[fototropical.livejournal.com]

(yet another translation. and how much do we really lose in it? in any case, here it is :O)

Conversation with Jeanne

Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne.
So many words, so much paper, who can stand it.
I told you the truth about my distancing myself.
I've stopped worrying about my misshapen life.
It was no better and no worse than the usual human tragedies.

For over thirty years we have been waging our dispute
As we do now, on the island under the skies of the tropics.
We flee a downpour, in an instant the bright sun again,
And I grow dumb, dazzled by the emerald essence of the leaves.

We submerge in foam at the line of the surf,
We swim far, to where the horizon is a tangle of banana bush,
With little windmills of palms.
And I am under accusation: That I am not up to my oeuvre,
That I do not demand enough from myself,
As I could have learned from Karl Jaspers,
That my scorn for the opinions of this age grows slack.

I roll on a wave and look at white clouds.

You are right, Jeanne, I don't know how to care about the salvation of my soul.
Some are called, others manage as well as they can.
I accept it, what has befallen me is just.
I don't pretend to the dignity of a wise old age.
Untranslatable into words, I chose my home in what is now,
In things of this world, which exist and, for that reason, delight us:
Nakedness of women on the beach, coppery cones of their breasts,
Hibiscus, alamanda, a red lily, devouring
With my eyes, lips, tongue, the guava juice, the juice of la prune de Cythère,
Rum with ice and syrup, lianas-orchids
In a rain forest, where trees stand on the stilts of their roots.

Death, you say, mine and yours, closer and closer,
We suffered and this poor earth was not enough.
The purple-black earth of vegetable gardens
Will be here, either looked at or not.
The sea, as today, will breathe from its depths.
Growing small, I disappear in the immense, more and more free.

Rozmowa Z Jeanne

Nie zajumjmy się filozofią, zostaw to, Jeanne.
Tyle słow i papieru, któż to zniesie.
Powiedziałem ci prawdę o moim oddalaniu się.
Nie tak znów bardzo mnie martwi moje koślawe życie,
Nie lepsze i nie gorsze od zwyklych ludzkich tragedii.
Lat już ponad trzydzieści toczy się nasza dysputa.
Tak jak teraz, na wyspie pod niebem tropików.
Uciekamy przed ulewą, chwila i pełne słońce,
I niemiję, olśniony szmaragdową esencją zieleni.

Zanurzamy się w piany na linii przyboju,
Płyniemy daleko, tam skąd horyzont w sklębieniu
bananowców, z pierzastymi wiatraczkami palm.
A ja pod oskarżeniem: że nie wzniosłem się na
na wysokość mego dziela,
Że nie wymagam od siebie, jak mógl nauczyć mnie Jaspers,
Że słabnie moja pogarda dla opinii, byle jakich, wieku.

Kołyszę się na fali i patrzę w obłoki.

Masz rację, Jeanne, nie umiem troszczyć się o zbawienie duszy,
Jedni są powolani, inni radzą sobie, jak umieją.
Przyjmuję, co mnie spotkalo, bylo sprawiedliwe.
Nie udaję dostojeństwa rozważnej starości.
W rzeczach tego świata, które są i dlatego cieszą:
Nagość kobiet na plaży, mosiężne stożki ich piersi,
Hibiskus, alamanda, czerwona lilia, pochłanianie
Oczami, usta, język, sok guawy, sok prune de Cynthere,
Rum z lodem i syropem, liany-orchidee
W mokrym lesie, gdzie drzewa stoją na szczudłach korzeni.
œmierć, powiadasz, moja i twoja, coraz bliżej, blisko.
I cierpieliśmy, i nie wystarczała nam biedna ziemia.

Fioletowo-czama ziemia warzywnych ogrodów
Będzie tutaj, widziana albo nie widziana.
Morze będzie jak dzisiaj oddychać głębinowow.
Malejący znikam w ogromie, coraz bardziej wolny.