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4
Feb
Evil is even, truth is an odd number and death is a full stop. When a dog barks late at night and then retires again to bed, he punctuates and gives majesty to the serial enigma of the dark, laying it more evenly and heavily upon the fabric of the mind.
19
Jan
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
17
Jan
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
12
Jan
From my window I can see a white mulberry tree, a tree that fascinates me and was one of the reasons why I moved here. Mulberry is a generous plant - it feeds dozens of bird families with its sweet and healthy fruit all spring and summer. But now the mulberry has no leaves, so I see a piece of a quiet street, which is crossed now and again by someone walking towards the park. The weather in Wrocław is almost summer, the sun is blinding, the sky is blue and the air is clear. Today, while walking with my dog, I saw two magpies chase an owl away from their nest. They looked at each other in the eye just a meter apart. I have the impression that the animals are also waiting for what will happen.
For me, the world has been too much for a long time. Too much, too fast, too loud.
So I don’t suffer the “trauma of isolation”, but I hate not meeting people. I don’t regret that they closed the cinemas. I don’t care that the shopping malls are shut. My only concern is when I think about all those who have lost their jobs. When I found out about preventive quarantine, I felt a kind of relief, and I know that many people feel the same, though they feel ashamed of it. My introversion, long suffocated and mistreated by the dictates of hyperactive extroverts, dusted itself off and left its wardrobe.
I look out the window at my neighbour, a busy lawyer whom I saw until recently leaving for court in the morning with his “toga” slung over his shoulder. Now, in a baggy tracksuit, he fights with a branch in the garden, which I think he has started cleaning. I see a couple of young people walking an old dog that has barely walked since last winter. The dog wobbles on its feet, and they patiently accompany him, walking at the slowest pace. A garbage truck picks up the garbage with a lot of noise.
Life goes on, of course, but with a completely different rhythm. I cleaned up the closet and took the newspapers that I had read to the paper waste bin. I replanted the flowers. I picked up the bike from repair. I enjoy cooking.
I keep coming back to my childhood images, when there was much more time and it could be “wasted”, staring out the window for hours, watching the ants, lying under the table and imagining that this is the ark. Or reading an encyclopaedia.
Is it not that we have returned to the normal rhythm of life? That it is not the virus that is a disorder of the norm, but just the opposite - that hectic world before the virus was abnormal?
After all, the virus reminded us of what we so passionately denied - that we are fragile creatures, made of the most delicate matter. That we are dying, that we are mortal.
That we are not separated from the world by our “humanity” and uniqueness, but the world is a kind of great network in which we are stuck, connected with other beings, invisible by threads of dependence and influences. That we are dependent on each other and no matter how distant are the countries that we come from, what language we speak and what the colour of our skin is - we fall ill, we fear and die in the same way.
It’s made us realize that no matter how weak and defenceless we feel, there are people around us who are even weaker and need help. It brings back how gentle our old parents and grandparents are and how much they should be cared for.
It’s shown us that our hectic mobility threatens the world. And it’s brought up the same question we rarely had the courage to ask ourselves: What are we actually looking for?
So the fear of being sick has turned us back from a winding path and reminded us, of necessity, of the nests we came from and in which we feel safe. Even great travellers, in a situation like this, will try to get home.
The sad truth revealed is - that in a moment of danger – thoughts turn inwards and exclude the categories of nations and borders. At this difficult moment, it turned out how weak the idea of a European community is in practice. The EU actually forfeited the game, handing over decisions in times of crisis to the nation states. I consider the closing of state borders to be the greatest failure of this wasted time - the old egoisms and the categories of “home” and “foreign” returned, that is, what we have been fighting over the last few years, hoping that it will never again format our minds. The fear of the virus automatically evoked the simplest atavistic belief that some strangers are to blame and that they always bring a threat from somewhere. In Europe, the virus is “from somewhere”, it is not ours, it is alien. In Poland, all those who return from abroad have become suspects.
The wave of borders slammed-closed and the monstrous queues at border crossings must have been a shock for many young people. The virus reminds one: the borders are there and they are doing well.
I am also afraid that the virus will soon remind us of yet another old truth; how unequal we are. Some of us will be taken by private planes to our home on an island or in a secluded forest, while others will stay in the cities to operate power plants and water supplies. Still others will risk their health by working in stores and hospitals. Some will make money from the epidemic, others will lose their achievements. The looming crisis is likely to undermine these principles, which seemed stable to us; many countries will not cope with it and in the face of their decomposition, new orders will wake up, as is often the case after crises. We sit at home reading books and watching series, but in fact we are preparing for a great battle for a new reality that we cannot even imagine, slowly realizing that nothing will ever be the same as before. The situation of compulsory quarantine and the strictures of the family at home may make us realize what we would not like to admit: that the family is tormenting us, that our marriage ties have long since melted. Our children will come out of quarantine addicted to the Internet, and many of us will realize the nonsense and sterility of a situation of enforced inertia. What if we increase the number of homicides, suicides and mental illness?
Before our eyes, the civilization paradigm that has shaped us over the last two hundred years is blowing away: the myth that we are the masters of creation, we can do anything and the world belongs to us.
New times are coming.
Translated by me from an article by Olga Tokarczuk (in Kobieta.pl 04.03.2021)
31
Dec
THEY must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down established honour; hawk for news
Whatever their loose fantasy invent
And murmur it with bated breath, as though
The abounding gutter had been Helicon
Or calumny a song. How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student’s lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no Solitude?
So the crowd come they care not what may come.
They have loud music, hope every day renewed
And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.
21
Jan
Nought loves another as itself
Nor venerates another so.
Nor is it possible to Thought
A greater than itself to know:
And Father, how can I love you,
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.
The Priest sat by and heard the child.
In trembling zeal he seiz’d his hair:
He led him by his little coat:
And all admir’d the Priestly care.
And standing on the altar high,
Lo what a fiend is here! said he:
One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy Mystery.
The weeping child could not be heard.
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They strip’d him to his little shirt.
And bound him in an iron chain.
And burn’d him in a holy place,
Where many had been burn’d before:
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such things done on Albion’s shore.
17
Sep
It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.”
I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here, to stand here as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.
[Excerpt from “The Ascent of Man”.]
May seven tears in every week,
Touch the hollow of you cheek,
That I - signed with such a dew -
For the Lion’s share may sue
Of roses ever curled
Round the may-pole of the world.
Heavy riddles lie in this,
Sorrow’s sauce for every kiss.
2
May
Out of the chaos of my doubt
And the chaos of my art
I turn to you inevitably
As the needle to the pole
Turns . . . as the cold brain to the soul
Turns in its uncertainty;
So I turn and long for you;
So I long for you, and turn
To the love that through my chaos
Burns a truth,
And lights my path.
2
May
Coarse as the sun is blatant, the high spinach-
Coloured elms, the lawns a yellow matting
Of tired grass, disgust me and the netting
Of summer boughs that creak at every touch.
Of this hot breeze distract me; live apart,
And bring no love to me from other fields: my hands
Are empty as my blind lop-sided heart!
Lop-sided, for self pity like a curse
Turns all I see to ugliness: the lawns
A wilderness for lack of unicorns fades
The elm a tower for birds of paradise.
Nature! I hate you for you scorch my brain
And make me see my weakness yet again.
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