Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems Quotes

“when the Lord built the world
he furrowed his brow
calculated calculated calculated
that is why the world is perfect
and uninhabitable

instead the world of the painter
is good
and full of mistakes
the eye wanders
from one color to another
one fruit to another
the eye mumbles
the eye smiles
remembers

the eye says it is bearable
only if one could
enter inside
there where the painter was
without wings
in slippers that fall off
without Virgil
with a cat in the pocket
a benevolent fantasy
and a hand
that unknowingly
corrects the world”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems

“the earth is the same everywhere
wisdom teaches everywhere the man
weeps with white tears
mothers rock their children
the moon rises
and builds a white house for us”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems