A girl asked you: What is poetry?
You wanted to say to her: You are too, ah yes, you are,
and that in fear and wonder,
which prove the miracle,
I'm jealous of your beauty's ripeness,
and because I can't kiss you nor sleep with you,
and because I have nothing and whoever has nothing to give
must sing....

But you didn't say it, you were silent
and she didn't hear the song.

 

***

 

Have you ever watched your old mother
making up the bed for you,
how she pulls, straightens, tucks in and smoothes the sheet
so you won't feel a single wrinkle?
Her breathing, the motion of her hands and palms
are so loving
that in the past they are still putting out the fire in Persepolis
and at this moment calming some future storm
off the China coast or in unknown seas.

 

***

 

There are many smiles.
But I am thinking of the most difficult,
the simplest smile.
It is deep-set, cut
on every side by the vinegrower's blade of time,
a smile that needs just one more wrinkle
to unravel everything and be ready for God's full name.
A smile like that stays on the face
somewhat longer than the joy from which it came -
or it's the smile that goes before the joy
and disappears
leaving the whole face to joy alone.

 

***

 

 

You drove it out of you many years ago,
closed the place, tried to forget it all.
You knew it wasn't in music and so you sang
You knew it wasn't in silence and so you were quiet
You knew it wasn't in solitude and so you were alone.
But what could have happened today
to scare you like one who in the light suddenly sees
a beam of light under the door of the next room
where no one has lived for years?

 

 

Vladimír Holan

(Selected Poems)
Penguin Modern European Poets

 

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