A Note from the Translators: Why return to a haunted past? When Mieczysław Jastrun published Memorials, he was near the end of his career as a writer, near the end of his life. Jastrun had survived the Holocaust and the Stalinist period in Poland. Born Jewish, he converted to Christianity at age 17 after serving briefly in the Polish army and contracting typhus. Immersed in Christian symbolism, this selection from Memorials (published in Warsaw in 1969) presents some of his strongest, most mysterious poems. Never has his sense of mortality been stated more intensely or more precisely, “The cup extinguishes the drinker.”
Jastrun concerned himself most often with metaphysics and morality. “And space / grows emptier / in an empty glass—,” the poet says, “the world, / four folded pages.” However, as a poet who published his poems in resistance periodicals, he couldn’t turn his back on the horrors of the genocide and Stalinism; nor was he able to escape historical necessity and despair in even his most mystical writings. “This wall, this air—” Mieczysław Jastrun writes, “after the shot, / emptiness stood there, / yet far / lips—wall.”
Elegiac in tone, Memorials rises out of a deep well of sadness and sorrow. Memory is fragile as Jastrun constructs a past of remnants, a world of fractured things—in search of his own faith and questioning its possibility simultaneously. “Hand—compelled to strike—” Mieczysław Jastrun writes in his poem “Knife with Red Shaft,” “do you need an angel?” The heart-rending question to the bloody knife echoes his agonizing struggle to cling to his faith in a world that had betrayed all he had come to believe.
In his revelatory poem “From Persian Parables,” the poet Alexander Wat (also a Jew) ends the poem with these words, “Nothing is ever over / ...and there is no bottom to evil.” While Jastrun was well aware that evil was an indomitable force in the universe, while he sometimes portrayed a universe emptied of compassion and mercy (“I can’t see or feel faith / in these extravagances, only death”), while he experienced the darkness of an age, he also saw a light in the world: In the poem “Mullein and Broom,” Jastrun writes, “Even the fallow fields will be saved...,” and in the poem “Dawn,” the poet states, “The crime was not the word of God,/ which survives bullets and fire.” Poems such as “Attempt,” “I Found Them in a Dream,” “Dinner Bell,” and “Scratched Glass” emerge from a dream world soaked in reality.
We began our collaboration on the poems of Mieczysław Jastrun six years ago driven by a desire to investigate the work of a Polish poet from Galicia. This had deep personal meaning for us as it connected each of us with our familial past. In his poetry, we explored images relevant to the universal quest for self-definition. First efforts brought us into a world perceived through a dream-like, elusive consciousness—fragmentary, and intense, evocative and stimulating—one that could not bear very much reality. The fragments themselves conceived an intuition. — JF and DO
Najpierw widziałem każdą rzecz z bliska. Widziałem tyle, ile pozwoliły mi ujrzeć Wąskie szczeliny. Później góry, doliny, morza, archipelagi I to, o czym wiedziałem już, że powinno Istnieć dla mnie. Omackiem szukając, senny, Przejrzałem, by ujrzeć wnętrze Rzeczy w ich grozie nieboskiej: Nagość planety. Skały z mchu odarte, Drzewa z kory, Szczęki z zębów, Piękno ze zmysłow— Pazury lwa rysują piach gorący, Szpony sępa zagłębiają się w wnętrznościach Drżącej ofiary. Odległości Zbliżyły się i zatarły— I znów jestem na początku świata, W wielkich zorzach bijących skrzydłami o morze.
At first, the world appeared small as if inches away. I glimpsed caves and narrow dens— but couldn’t see into them. Later, the world opened into mountains, valleys, seas, archipelagoes, all I could imagine. Groping my way, I saw the heavenly light shining from rocks stripped of moss, trees stripped of bark, teeth ripped from jaws— the carnal beauty of the world. A lion clawed its trembling prey in the hot sand, and then vultures penetrated its belly. Distances converged into a small blurred space. And the world began again, swelling into vast auroras, as the sea slapped its luminous white wings.
Zaczęło się od drzewa wiadomości dobrego i złego, Od węża, od niepokoju, od strachu, od Myślącej gałęzi, od Niewiary w formę, od Wiary we wszechmoc rozumu, Niewiary w rozum. Przeciw historij, przeciw sobie Wyzwalający zło z materii, Potęgujący je do siły słońc, Rozdarty sobą jak prdziemnym wybuchen— Sprzymierza się z własną śmiercią. Przeciw niemocie wszechświata, Przeciw przestrzeni wyjętej z czasu, Przeciw czasowi bez ciała— Z oknami zamkniętymi Na powieki tysiąca nocy. W rynsztok to wszystko, w rynsztok Głupców, w otchłań starców, w otchłań Młodości. Model losu Nie jeden dla wszystkich, lecz ręce te same. . . . . . . . . . . Od ręki, od kamienia, od młota, od koła Potoczyły się dzieje w bezdziejach— I drzewo dosłużyło się do krzyża.
It started with the trees with anxiety and fear. And from the tree of good and evil came the snake leading us toward disbelief as the branches of our faith snapped. Reason reigned supreme, but we had no faith in it. Against history, against the solidity of things, we split the atom, tore asunder our world, releasing a power equal to the sun, untamed, unconstrained. The explosion signaled the beginning of our end. Against the universe dissolving into space, against space removed from time, against time and its lost bodies, we closed the windows, and the eyes of infinite nights died out. Here is the gutter of fools, where we remain, the real abyss— the abyss of naivete and ignorance. We pursue our individual fates, but we’re all in the same hands, held by the same destiny. . . . . . . . . . . The hand of the hammer beat stone into razor-edged weapons. The wheel rolled into history. And I, I sacrificed the tree to the cross.
I zatraciłem się—nie wiem—we śnie, na jawie. Jabłon przed domem rodzinnym i naprzeciw Drewniany budynek poczty z czerwoną skrzynką I powietrze leżące nisko na trawie I przestrzeń rozstrzelona, rostrzelana— Razem z czasem minęła, rozminęła się ze mną posłusznie. Mogło lat trzydzieści, może trzysta Przejść ukosem. To obojętne. Tu bez słońca o bez cienia każda miara. Lecz jabłoń już nie istniejąca Owocami po dziś dzień świeci Rozłożysta. I tylko Ja przypadłem do ziemi—i już się Nie podniosę.
I awake in a dream—lost in my family house. An apple tree spreads in the window, and across the street the post office rises with its red mail box. Air swells over the grass and space curves through time— expanding into eternity. Was it thirty or three hundred years ago? It doesn’t matter—everything is cyclical. Now the sun disappears, and apples rot on branches. And like bruised fruit falling to the ground, I’ll never rise again.
Jeszcze drzewa W niekompletnych liściach Przejrzyste pod nieprzejrzystym niebem Jakby oddzielone od ziemi, Tak lekkie, Ledwie zaczęte, Nie dorysowane jeszcze, Rosnące Jakby po to tylko, żeby Drżeniem liścia, wyciągnięciem pólszeptu Uprzytomnić ciszę przed deszczem. Tak zdarzało się: Przejrzystość potrącę, Oprę się plecami o powiew poranny, Ocazmi przejdę po gałązce, Całym ciałem podeprę firmament, Ciężar tak nieprawdopodobny, że Nieistniejący. Takiej przejrzystości Zawdzięczam dźwięk, Co zjawił się w potężnej grze Niewidzialnych instrumentów.
Even the trees with their incomplete leaves became transparent against this opaque sky as if they were reaching to separate from their roots. The light glimmered from the incipient landscape. A white leaf trembled, and everything appeared calm before the coming of the rain. With the last breath of morning, the transparency vanished. Then the eyes blossomed in the sprigs, and a brawny body held up the sky, so magnificent it seemed Godly. Such transparency beyond vision—I heard its music playing on instruments visible only in the mind.
Wyjdziesz z pokoju Prawie pustego, lecz drżącego światłem I powiesz—jakbyś rysowała na powietrzu, Jakbyś kończyła Naszą przerwaną przed laty rozmowę przeciętą przez aleję zmiażdżoną kołami pociągu. I bzu gałązka z czarnego ogrodu Wejdzie przez okno Otwarte na przyszłość. Nie zmieniłaś się nic. Jak Bóg w drzewach Trwasz odradzając się nowymi liśćmi W moim studio zdjęć momentalnych Schnących w nocach bez snu.
I leave the room, empty except for the wavering light where you linger—living in air, our dream crushed years ago in the intersection, as if by steel wheels. And the sweet scent of lilac comes through the open window and dirt in the garden blackens as the future approaches in the wind. Nothing has changed. God still breathes in the trees. And you’re reborn in budding leaves. In my studio, photos clipped to a line dry all night— sleepless.
Nie stworzyłem cię na niczyje podobieństwo. Stworzyłem cię na podobieństwo moich myśli o tobie, Ściślej: projektów sennych, które Dawno przewiały w błękit, w chmurę pyłu— I tak stworzoną, niepodobną do siebie i do mnie, Brałem na kolana, Włączałem się w twój uśmiech, w twoją pogodę Której mi brak (dlatego cię stworzyłem), Ale czy nie postąpiłem tak samo Z całym moim życiem, Czy nie utworzyłem siebie Na podobieństwo kogoś, kogo nie ma, Nie było i nie będzie— Czy nie wyzwoliłem swego, twego życia Z absurdu życia dła dwojga? Nie narzuciłem ci żadnej postaci, Której byś przyjąć nie chciała, nie mogła.
I created your image out of the bright seeds of my own thoughts about who you are, who you were, and in my imagination you were unlike anyone or anything—a blue light winnowed from a cloud of dust, a planet of swirling gases gathered out of nothing, fading into you and me. On my knees, I imagined your storms and floods, your good days and bad. I turned on your smile. I created you out of no air, out of what was missing all along. But whether I acted as I imagined you would act or created myself in the image of an entity who never was or never will be, I can’t free myself of this absurdity, my face mirroring yours and yours mine until neither of us knows the other.
Mieczysław Jastrun was born as Mojsze Agatstein in 1903 in Korolowka, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine), and died in 1983 in Warsaw, Poland. A lyric poet and essayist of Jewish origin, he survived the terrible years of the Nazi occupation in Poland. During his lifetime he published a dozen volumes of poetry, including A Human Matter, A Meeting in Time, Protected Hour and Memorials. He concerned himself most often with the subjects of philosophy and morality and shunned Jewish themes in his poetry (with the exception of a few poems). However, as a poet who published his poems in resistance periodicals, he couldn’t turn his back on the horrors of the genocide; nor was he able to escape historical necessity and despair in even his most mystical writings. Jastrun is considered to be one of the most important Polish poets of the years between the two world wars. He translated French, Russian, and German poets (including Rilke) into Polish. His work is included in Postwar Polish Poetry: An Anthology, selected and edited by Czesław Miłosz.
Jeff Friedman’s seventh book Floating Tales, a collection of prose poems, is forthcoming from Plume Editions/MadHat Press. His poems, mini stories and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, New England Review, The Antioch Review, Poetry International, Plume, Hotel Amerika, Flash Fiction Funny, Agni Online, The New Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Poets, New Flash Fiction Review, New World Writing, The New Republic, and numerous other literary magazines. Dzvinia Orlowsky’s and his translation of Memorials by Polish Poet Mieczysław Jastrun was published by Lavender Ink/Dialogos in August 2014. Friedman and Orlowsky were awarded an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship for 2016. Nati Zohar and Friedman’s book of translations, Two Gardens: Modern Hebrew Poems of the Bible, was published by Singing Bone Press in 2016.
Dzvinia Orlowsky is a poet and translator. She is the author of five collections of poetry published by Carnegie Mellon University Press including A Handful of Bees, reprinted in 2009 as a Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary; Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones, recipient of a 2010 Sheila Motton Book Award; and her most recent, Silvertone, for which she was named Ohio Poetry Day Association’s 2014 Co-Poet of the Year. Her translation from Ukrainian of Alexander Dovzhenko’s novella, The Enchanted Desna, was published by House Between Water in 2006; and Jeff Friedman’s and her translation of Memorials by Polish Poet Mieczysław Jastrun was published by Dialogos in 2014. She is a Founding Editor of Four Way Books, a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Massachusetts Cultural Council poetry grant, and recipient with Jeff Friedman of a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Grant. She teaches poetry at the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing of Pine Manor College and at Providence College. Her newest poetry collection, Bad Harvest, is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press in 2018.