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

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 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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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 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

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

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

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/27/2019

You are the Sisyphus of the modern world,
you try to move the boulder in the streets
narrow and winding, but it's so heavy,
and getting heavier on the scale of passing time,
you are getting older and older after every midnight,
so your figure - becomes angular,
and the cobble-****** street - trodden and slippery;
and the gutter has overgrown from all kind of the sewage
- you have scratches that don't want to heal,
the cataract has crept into worn-out eyes.

Youth has betrayed you, but not only you
- you'll get a wreath at the big funeral.

Copyright © by Wieslaw Musialowski 12/4/2018

Translated by Jarek Zawadzki

Tell me, Mother, do, at least in a dream
And I'll believe you that it's so up there,
So still and windlessly as it might seem
For when I put my ear unto the bare
And frozen ground, with a reunion theme
The ground comes up, that we should join forever
In a union that no contretemps will sever
And that, transformed, we'll take the likeness of
A philosophical and wordless love,
But you won't tell the things I can't infer
Or maybe you are not exactly sure
I think that, as if lyrics immature,
You tease me like a Christmas caroler.

Wieslaw Musialowski 3/8/2007

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 5/26/2019

Do you remember the cars plainly carved up?
pine trunks and oak wheels,
with which we carried joy every day
to the potato field enveloped in smoke,
where carts with ammunition waited
and potato barricades stood

our big storages of bloodless weapon
- there we fought our potato wars.
A sip of water served as refreshing fare,
so everything was spinning around.
And when the battlefield has been captured at last,
tired, craving for settlement

by the fire with a song we bravely sat down
to conclude friendly agreements
- into young hearts with a warm thread sewn.
I know that you remember - how we could forget
the most beautiful moments? - It's like
not to see a certain beauty in the fields;

It's like losing in the time of beautiful weather
a piece of dear life that has been given to us,
to be able to always recall memories
and give advice to the lost...
overly idealized.
Hidden somewhere in the recesses of tomorrow,

as though intentionally with a secret mist enveloped
to delude, or for our convenience?
You remember the spring, so carefully selected
from among the purest? It's why we reached
to the very bottom - into innermost deposits,
to learn with a falcon's look

to grasp what a simple thought cannot,
if you won't look with stubbornness into the eyes
because lectures from the theory are not enough,
and blind faith will only do more damage.
However... solitary, we ran into the crowd,
wanting to acquire known and unknown:

to reach peaks rising from the darkness...
but perhaps it was right - to rather dream up,
than to compete with fate stubbornly.

Wieslaw Musialowski 3/19/2003

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/13/2018

He stands firmly
on oak legs
moss-covered from knees
to the shoulders

He knows
that he must last

from the cliff to the cliff
handrails
like limbs patched

under feet
to the opposite bank

Wieslaw Musialowski 3/7/2003

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 1/10/2019

Oh, how I miss the cornflowers and poppies,
lowlands, sands and dwarf pines,
rye bread and country girls
with the simplest of simple tastes.

I dream of such upbringing to later be able
to respect others without rejecting anyone,
and to always let them pull their cart of good fortune and misery,
being able to see not only our own right.

I'd like to believe that a neighbor always wishes you well,
that there's no between between the fields,
in order not to stain life with lies,
and that it is possible to never yell at anyone.

I miss the forest leaning in the wind,
the marigolds - children of wet meadows,
and those hard men who'd always stand up and fight
even without the chance of winning.

I miss shutters with a heart in the middle,
But most of all - white clouds.

Wieslaw Musialowski 12/4/2018

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/22/2018

Love me while we're here,
love, because there's so much
love in us, and fragrance of wild lilacs
before the time of flowers will pass,

and we'll be gone too
and there will be such a time,
and there will be crying and pain,
but we know well, me and you,

that in this world
there's nothing eternal,
that so it must be:
- we'll die to live
and don't be surprised why

Wieslaw Musialowski 8/12/2016

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/30/2019

Since centuries
he has been dressing
native land
in beautiful colors
- into the robes of rotation,
that all the seasons of the year
could come true:
from the harsh winter
to hot summer.

That early spring
could flash with autumn
among the white patches of snow:
with the color of winter crops
that shimmer in the sun
- with small patches
of the first green.

Separates with balk
barley from rye,
rapeseed field
from wheat fields.
To make it possible for the earth
to give birth to all kind of crops
- the stretch of arable land
sleeps till spring.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/9/2001

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/24/2018

You carry it inside.
You pile it.
It grows.
It has a name:
Man.

Wieslaw Musialowski 8/24/2018

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/24/2018

Words in the rapids
- You won't catch up
Hard as stones
- Crushed
Existence.
They wash feet
- Half-dead

Wieslaw Musialowski 8/24/2018

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/11/2018

The spring outside the window smells of first rain,
And though autumn has colored hair with gray
- I love you still.

We won't leave by the same train,
Because it wasn't written in the Book of Fate,
- I still love you.

The words of hope which into the poem I compose,
Throw on my grave and remember, Dear,
- I love you as before.

Although into the Unknown carried by momentum's force
Maybe I will meet you in the endless blue one day
- And love I will.

Copyright © by Wieslaw Musialowski 08/2012

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/25/2019

Over the ridge,
among endless green valleys,
that divides but also unites
- the sky has spread
with blue,
and since centuries lasting
with an image:
with prayer mine
and yours
to God not always
the same
- because mine they've clad
with an armor of delusions,
and yours they've dragged
dead
onto the stakes burning
with despair,
so that hot ruins
he'd resurrect.
But tears of hope
are continually being shed on
borders connecting
two gods.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/9/2001

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/15/2018

When morphine was not a drug anymore,
And the wind outside the window howled along in pain,
Grandmothers were counting how many beads
After severe winter bleed on the viburnum.
To draw some blood from veins, said one;
The second, that the pressure in the clock will fall
And she won't be able to count how many more hours must pass
for the boat to arrive that takes you to the Afterlife;
The third said - to the Brim of Bliss,
And here kingscup in a human quagmire
bloomed in May, when New should be born
everywhere, and coffin trees?

Wieslaw Musialowski 12/7/2015

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/28/2019

Dream, my Love, dream life,
let the night not scare you anymore,
we survived harder days before,
we survived more difficult years.

I could only give as much as
life itself was offering
when I still had enough strength
to struggle against all odds,
to straighten each of the roads,
although there were hundreds of twists,
but it was easier to keep walking
because fate was often helping us along,
and our parents' warm encouraging voice:
that we'll succeed despite the storms,
though maybe with a field flower
instead of a rose.

Copyright © by Wieslaw Musialowski 12/4/2018

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/19/2018

All because of the gap in the wooden ceiling
and because of this hole in a patched roof,
because Life with freedom has enthused
and flown away in the direction unknown.

They say that like a rainbow, hung for a moment,
which is a harbinger of good weather after the rain
and it had wings colorful like butterflies
- of such unusual ordinary beauty.

They say it had charming veil
like morning fog over a blossomed meadow
and it looked like a happy bird
resembling so much the larks over the heavens.

Then on a field willow it sat
And having sung... it vanished.

Copyright © by Wieslaw Musialowski 10/21/2003