by Artur Grabowski.
(Translated by Charles S. Kraszewski)
He left the house and sat down on the seashore.
Over there, far away, the navy-blue stripe beneath the uncovered sky.
Past it broad fields, as cold as a fish-skin fur.
Further on the greenish-yellow colour of life.
On the smooth strand, transparent crescents outlined in foam.
The concrete pier: fat seagulls impregnated by the wind,
vulgarly similar to hens gone lazy.
Sometimes one of them stands, takes the wind under her, and it lifts her up;
as indifferent as a kite in the greedy eyes of a child.
He listened, but understood nothing in that frenzy.
He stared long, but saw nothing, the wound remained closed.
Some of the seagulls shrieked, others sat there silently.
Like a waste-land he yearned hopelessly
for them to sow signs in him, which would bloom as certainties.
He begged. But the wind was strong and filled his mouth.
Then some bomber-clouds flew in low, pulling the heavens behind them.
The cold absconded with the birds, singly, until the concrete was empty.
The sea moved within itself, the sand was patient.
He arose. Nothing more today. He licked the salt from his lips.
He returned by the flat path between the dunes;
he spooked a flock of sparrows, which were eating
(but only later he was amazed at this),
finding seed amidst the crystals of the sand.