Unseen Hand: Poems

by Adam Zagajewski

all the nights since you left are snarled like the yarn of an old sweater

Writing poems is a duel that no one wins—on one side a shadow rises, massive as a mountain range viewed by a butterfly, on the other, only brief glimpses of brightness, images and thoughts like a match flame on the night when winter is born in pain. It’s trench warfare, a coded telegram, long watching, patience, a sinking ship that sends out signals and stops sinking, a cry of triumph, loyalty to the old, silent masters, calm contemplation of a brutal world, explosive joy, ecstatic, unsatisfied, regret, everything passes, hope, nothing is lost, a conversation without a final word, a long break at school when the students are gone, the defeat of one weakness and the start of another, endless waiting for the next poem, a prayer, mourning for a mother, a momentary truce, complaints and whispers in a charred confessional, rebellion and magnanimous forgiveness, squandering the whole estate, remorse, assent, sprint and stroll, irony, cold gaze, profession of faith, diction, haste, the cry of a child who’s lost his greatest treasures.

and only stones remained, wildflowers, friendship, and the light ash of melancholy.

Poets build a home for us—but they themselves can’t dwell in it