Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/29/2019

Why are you crying, oh sad little wind,
and why are you weeping so loud?
You should be sitting in your cozy hut,
and instead, you roam in the fields?

- My, oh, my! But you... you don't know,
my dear, my sweet child! I weep and I cry
because I don't have a hut, my own cozy hut,
and so forever and ever wander I must.

Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/30/2019

There, in my country, in a faraway land
a hundred dimmed stars shine in a crown,
one hundred extinguished stars above the field stand,
like a hundred knights in an iron armor clad.

There, in my country, in a faraway land
one hundred red-hot hearts with longing burn,
one hundred red-hot hearts pound in the chest
like a ghost into armor iron plates.

There, in my country, in a faraway land
one hundred winds are galloping through fallow lands,
one hundred winds are galloping through the steppe trail
like one hundred steeds' golden horseshoes beating the ground.

And when one hundred days, one hundred nights shall pass,
with hearts full of power knights will rise,
knights will rise, horses will mount,
and they'll light up stars in the golden crown.

Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)

Art Image
The artwork hangs there on my wall
As it has for years
A simple framed image in a frame
Nothing special to look at
But it is special in ways
The frame has a gray arm
And hand that rests there
Ready to punch any robbers
Who dare to steal my art!
My ordinary strange painting
With a Martial Art trained limb

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/7/2019

O scarecrow, dressed elegantly
- in worn-out shoes, ragged old hat,
on which black crow sits in dignity
and stares off into this distance where forest sad

- you certainly dream about traveling
into these wheat fields, grasses adorned with flowers
that you could lose your scarecrow's soul
running happily towards the horizon...

But you stand here, alas, forever lost in thoughts,
unable to understand where the restriction comes from,
with your straw heart always split
between both powerlessness and want.

Funny thing, my dear scarecrow - to have
so much on your own and not to.

Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/01/2008

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/5/2019

Sitting on the perch the rooster boasted:
soon the king of swimmers I'll be
and laurel wreath I will get:
Cos the champion of champions I am in this respect!
The hens, excited, clucked in admiration,
small yellow chicks silently listened in awe,
oinking happily were the piglets,
and the ducks? Like crazy they laughed!

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/15/2001

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/7/2019

The sun has saddened its face
with lots of gray,
and made the mountains' bed
with an abundance of colors:

For Winter - it makes the bed with whites.
For Autumn - with reds.
In the Summer - with golds.
And for Spring? - with lyrical greens.

It has adorned everything
with shades of colors
awakened but still sleepy,
spoiling with correlation
of fiery greens.

Enamored time of red
of autumn colors
will turn the forest into one big flame
with fulfillment of flirtation.

A dewdrop sobs in the morning
put to sleep by dusk,
flying away as a wreath of rainbow
it returns at dawn.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/15/2001

Like leaves

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/19/2018

If for the orphans of golden autumn,
Then only in a country where they dig out
From sycamores, beech trees* - among ancestors' shadows
Because these, constantly dying live.

If hands of the poor fall
Like golden leaves, without the law of gravity
- Then what must be never changes
And richer they die.

If everything ecloses itself in the space
Over the crowns with radial glow
Then nothing apart from this color will change...
They'll be reborn again in the multi-leaf tree.

Wieslaw Musialowski 9/22/2004

Beech tree is a national Polish tree often found in Polish poetry.


Indeed

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/23/2019

Nestled into a pillow before falling asleep
maybe you will think to yourself
I managed to get something done today
and the rest? let it happen in dreams,

when you wake up fresh in the morning,
like the grass silvered with frost,
the sun will twinkle with a ray
and everything shall be great,

at midday, you'll sit under a tree,
because it's pleasant to rest in the shade,
and to end the day successfully
you look at the tops of the mountains

and you think how wonderful and beautiful
is autumn, luckily, the forest is not burning
though beech trees as red as fire

Wieslaw Musialowski 9/2/2019

*A reference to The 2019 Siberian wildfires.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/8/2019

* * * (A sad September is heading over the tops...)

A sad September is heading over the tops,
through the barren peaks suddenly turned gray.
In his heart hidden luggage of memories he carries,
and only crickets' farewell sails
quietly rustle with wind filled,
rocking to sleep dreams* unfulfilled.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/27/2002

*moments in the original

Autumnal Hour (Shorter)

Look! - from smoke I plait this poem short:
for fogs over an autumn meadow
with heathers strewn and drowsy,
for stubbles, fields and forests - in honor - of bards!
I? - I know they're hardly rustling
the strophes of simple words... And you? - you weave sorrows!

Wieslaw Musialowski 6/19/2002

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/7/2019

So poetically the mountain forest shimmers:
yellow-gold chickens here and there,
gray guineafowls' small chicks,
and hens clad in red of the dresses.

On the edge in beads of flames
a rafter of turkeys - eye-catching -
therefore colors of colorful flocks of poultry
in dying green submerged are easy to remember.

The cold ray gathers goose feathers:
and from quills arranges an autumn mattress,
while the whitest down he'll embroider into hours

with larch needle, so that a pillowcase made of the rainbow
every year would bloom many times
on the dial of a silver cobweb.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/27/2002

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/20/2018

Look! - white petals, like the first snow,
like a holiday linen tablecloths.
I? - I remember those holidays:
warm shadows of candles, you put on the table,
and the puff of breath in disarray,
entertains with the play of colors, and from feathers... sizzles.

Look! - from smoke I plait this poem short:
for fogs over an autumn meadow
with heathers strewn and drowsy,
for stubbles, fields and forests - in honor - of bards!
I? - I know they're hardly rustling
the strophes of simple words... And you? - you weave sorrows!

Wieslaw Musialowski 6/19/2002