"musialowski" poems
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/3/2019
My homeland - dear land,
where for the first time I saw the sun
and where I came to know God;
Where my father, brothers and mother kind
taught me prayers in my maternal tongue.
My homeland - villages and cities,
planted from the times of Piasts among Lechic fields;
Rivers, forests, flowery leas and meadows,
where larks sing their sweet songs of hope.
My homeland - our forefathers' glory,
Chrobry's Notched Sword and Cecora Mace,
Knightly Spirit, noble and brave,
bitter defeats and victories great.
My homeland - quiet green fields
for centuries trampled by hostile armies,
burial mounds and sad graves
that have covered our freedom defenders.
My homeland - heroic spirit of the Polish people,
that by miracle lives amid hunger and cold;
- hope that always blooms in hearts,
with work for the fathers, and song for the young!
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
Nov 3, 2019
Nov 3, 2019 at 11:32 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/2/2019
Paint me such a village in the valley,
sad with dark green firs and cheerful with crops...
Let she all in red rowanberries be,
and let gray linen lay on her meadows;
let colorful rainbows throw themselves across the silent pond,
dispersed by air that spurts out of the waters deep.
Let the cloud of pigeons flutter overhead,
and dandelions' soft fluff and spiders' silk threads...
And paint pastures and fertile fields,
and in their black soil let wheat and barley shine with gold,
and let fiery red of poppies ridges beautifully adorn,
and poplars over the road make into a string,
and throw the silvery mist on the meadows...
And let they walk so, loudly, through the field
heifers' bells and clapping of whips.
Let the willows ponder by the murmuring stream,
casting shadow pre-sunset and long,
and quiet calming blue give around,
and fill the air with birds' happy babbling.
And put such a cloud on the mountains' brow...
And only people make ours, so dear to my heart.
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
* The original name of the poem is "In a foreign land", as
the poem was written in Karlsbad in Germany.
Nov 2, 2019
Nov 2, 2019 at 5:43 AM UTC
Life's journey is hard for everyone,
but always try, as best as you can,
that it'd be a white-sailed ship
that will be awaiting you when
your odyssey comes to an end.
Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/25/2020
Nov 27, 2020
Nov 27, 2020 at 2:11 PM UTC
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)
Oct 30, 2019
Oct 30, 2019 at 2:10 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/15/2018
Late moon
takes the baton
- offering to the twilight
a bow in sacrifice:
with glow greeting
star aesthetes
- an orchestra of crickets
- eternal poets,
so that songs of love
inspired by the muses
- they would loudly sing
in the thickets.
Wieslaw Musialowski 10/9/2001
Oct 6, 2019
Oct 6, 2019 at 4:37 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/16/2018
The sun bows low,
putting out the candlesticks of time,
it decorates white altars,
therefore winter is already close.
Wieslaw Musialowski 15/10/2001
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 3:21 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 12/2/2019
I miss these people: simple and direct,
the green and blue open gate of the lowlands,
the majesty of generations, a real chamber,
conversations around the table, what's new in the village:
that Johnny is doing well, that he was lucky,
even though he has never been a top student in geography,
that Mary has a husband who loves and respects her,
for he knows that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover,
that a kind heart is a real treasure.
It should be taught at home from an early age
that there's a place above the door where Christ on a wooden cross
is waiting suffering, patient - he doesn't complain
that every day he has to see that it's not easy here
- everyone shall get as much as in the will
all deeds weigh on the scale, and the clock
counts the days and hours and works evenly:
sometimes he would like to slow down the heart of the machinery,
but the big hand is constantly urging the small one
oh, how can a whole comprise in one life,
can you excuse yourself, divide into smaller pieces?
- you need to be a human and to be cheerful in your life.
Wieslaw Musialowski 08/12/2017
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 3:28 AM UTC
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
Oct 10, 2019
Oct 10, 2019 at 2:03 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/20/2018
Kneeling before you,
I bow my head low,
confessing the truths
due to the Motherland:
it's you who taught me
to see beauty with a word,
and when I entrusted
my soul to you,
you made the bed
with mirror thought
- looking-glass' reflection -
dressed in pensive ponderings.
I love you, Poland,
when you are blooming in spring.
Your fertile fields
of gold wheat and barley.
I love,
when in summer,
in the aroma of linden trees,
adorned with flowers,
you lure with cool shade.
I love in autumn:
saddened,
rainy.
I love with pure and
unchanging love,
full of joy
of sins remission:
of Christmas Eve
examination of conscience.
I love, from south to north,
in February cold
and in hot July.
Your steel statues
of the Carpathian peaks.
Your streams, when rumbling
they carry the March ice floes.
Your beautiful sparkling willow greens
of Masurian waters,
when the sun is chasing
dancing rays
-with emerald's spark
of silver-plated steel,
before they'll disappear
with colors of the rainbow
in the hazy distance.
Your ancient castles,
standing proudly since the times of Piasts.
Your dunes, tamed with dwarf pine,
your country homesteads on the Bug and Prosna.
Polish wolves', eager for blood,
fearful thundering voices.
The heroic fate of the brave Polish armies.
Golden wheat ears of liberation
in the coat of arms of the Nation.
At the sources of the Vistula
I love you with reverie:
And over transparent waters
further reaches
I sob.
You'll hug me,
Mother!
Your son,
when you'll tuck me in
as my only Ma
-buried,
with eternal... loving.
Wieslaw Musialowski 10/9/2001
Oct 6, 2019
Oct 6, 2019 at 2:37 PM UTC
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
Oct 7, 2019
Oct 7, 2019 at 12:40 PM UTC
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
Oct 8, 2019
Oct 8, 2019 at 10:48 AM UTC
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
Oct 10, 2019
Oct 10, 2019 at 7:39 PM UTC
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
Oct 10, 2019
Oct 10, 2019 at 4:41 PM UTC
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
Oct 6, 2019
Oct 6, 2019 at 4:40 AM UTC
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.
Oct 10, 2019
Oct 10, 2019 at 1:06 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski
And, after all, nothing has changed:
Home, children, worries - our daily lives plot,
and suddenly a smell of different strength...
forget-me-not.
Wieslaw Musialowski
Oct 5, 2019
Oct 5, 2019 at 8:25 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/20/2018
And the sun seems to disappear in the west
in beeches crowns, it sinks in green
and the night like a king sits upon the throne
and it shimmers in moonlight.
And nothing has changed - ages are passing:
the moon has not grown, the sun has not diminished,
hunter and hare do not count the stumbles,
no beginning will ever meet the end.
The crows are cawing though I do not know what
- allegedly they carry foretaste of winter
and it so happens that my eyes water,
because time turns winter's birthday
into the autumn's funeral. The last travelers
will sit for a moment as before the journey
the strangers sat with the household members
like a daisy with the most beautiful rose.
And so is the Earth that there is enough space for everyone,
enough water and air, fire and ash:
for the rich, the beggars, for those experienced by fate
- without favoring - it will host everyone.
Wieslaw Musialowski 6/14/2008
Oct 5, 2019
Oct 5, 2019 at 8:47 AM UTC
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)
Oct 30, 2019
Oct 30, 2019 at 2:15 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/29/2019
Even if your ship would be caught in the greatest of storms,
you'll stay in charge unafraid being the helmsman for your crew,
like a good father caring for his children, you shall not let them die.
If you fall - you will not swear,
because your fellowmen will lift you up,
for your heart for everyone and everywhere.
Remember - money is the king of the world,
and friends? - they'll find you in need,
but the small flame of a poor-quality candle
always quickly goes out.
For your birthday some will bring you roses,
have you seen this flower without thorns?
while others - dasies from an oak wood,
adorned with the most innocent dew.
You'll have to choose - love or affection,
and given moment you'd better not confuse
that sometimes it's worth to think about that
what in its essence a flower shall remain.
Wieslaw Musialowski 5/10/2003
Nov 12, 2019
Nov 12, 2019 at 11:39 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/5/2019
...Smaller than small is my spirit
And bigger than big.
Everlasting motion puts no limits
between the droplets of the sea.
Caught up in ocean's run
living waves roll free...
And one drop, which hits the bank,
is also called the sea.
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
Nov 5, 2019
Nov 5, 2019 at 2:30 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 20/10/2019
Black thread spins itself,
slowly entwining your neck.
And it strangles you with might
all sorrows - soon will be gone.
In the distance, you hear the bells of Eternity,
foaming sough of blood is hissing in your ears,
your eyes wander around, around,
shaking like a wagon on potholes.
You are powerless against this great power
all your past is now lost:
devoid of regrets and all memories,
you are slowly heading towards the light
- a new Dawn there, in the darkness - is glowing.
Przemysalaw Musialowski 20/10/2019
* A new Beginning there, in the distance - is waiting.
Oct 19, 2019
Oct 19, 2019 at 9:49 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/9/2019
From boulder to boulder, I was standing on a fragile plank
that separates light from darkness, death from life,
over the huge explosion of the precipice foamed...
Below me, the roar and beating of the wings of a dark night.
Through the moist floor of the moss tapestries, the abyss
is growling and, like a hound, rattling with the chain...
At my feet its foams, its anger, its howling...
I trample them, I strike them with lightning bolts... I am just a shade.
From boulder to boulder, I've descended under the mad assault
of waters, ferociously rushing at me and at the the abyss,
stunned by the simultaneous firing of a hundred death's guns.
And suddenly I felt like a light bird feather,
carried far away from the quiet marina by the breeze,
and trembling, I covered my eyes... I was just daydreaming.
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
Nov 9, 2019
Nov 9, 2019 at 5:22 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/3/2019
And spring will come and it will open the buds,
but in my eyes it shall never die
the boundless white field...
And summer will come and ears of grain
shall ring. But in my eyes still, bright as day,
boundless white field...
And life will pass and death will cloud,
but in the coffin I'll open my eyes
into the boundless white field...
And midnight will come and I will rise from the grave
and I'll direct my pensive steps
to the boundless white field...
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
Nov 3, 2019
Nov 3, 2019 at 7:25 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 5/27/2019
Mother, you know - darkness is coming,
so lend me a lantern
that I may distinguish in the dark what is black.
That I may feel the white of the jasmines,
though their smell still makes me think of death,
but this affliction I would like to cure.
Plant the soothing flowers
and say - on the field furrows, like on a lowland meadow,
moments of happiness bloom as well
from a passage - to a passage.
Send me a letter of hope that you will be able to come
and that you will blow the candle out
when the time to wake up comes.
You will lead me by the hand because I am still a child,
and I'm not ashamed to ask you - talk to God there
about difficult matters - after all, you also
shared the burdens of existence,
here where every day is different
and where there are no sinless.
Copyright © by Wieslaw Musialowski 5/26/2019
Oct 4, 2019
Oct 4, 2019 at 8:47 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/4/2019
It's evening, Lord! The forest birds
towards their nests lean their wings...
Minstrels of your fields
have stopped to sing their songs.
I've spent a whole long hard day at work
in tears, longing for home...
and you didn't have a single bright ray
from the lights of the morning and of the day, and of the sun.
My time slowly bends to an end,
the evening star, trembling in the sky,
already flashes among the shadows of the night.
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
______________
I am not happy with the last line. Original: "already flashes/twinkles/shines among the shadows.
Nov 4, 2019
Nov 4, 2019 at 1:16 PM UTC