Sebastian Dreaming

Sebastian Dreaming

For Adolf Loos1

Mother bore the babe in the white moon, In the shadow of the walnut tree, ancient elderberry, Drunk on poppy juice, the lament of the thrush; And silently A bearded face bows with compassion over her

Quietly in the dark of the window; and the old chattel Of ancestors Lay broken up; love and autumn reverie.

So dark a day in the year, a sad childhood, As the boy quietly descended into cool water, silver fish, Calm and a face; As he flung himself hard as stone in front of wild black horses, His star came over him in a gray night;

Or when he, in mother’s freezing hand, Walked about Saint Peter’s2 autumn cemetery at dusk, A frail corpse lay quiet in the dark of its cell And it lifted cold lids above him.

But he was a little bird in the bare branches, The long bells in the November evening, The father’s stillness, as he asleep descended winding stairs in twilight.

1 Adolf Loos (1870–1933), Austrian architect, whose Viennese circle included many artists and writers, including Oskar Kokoschka and Georg Trakl 2 Saint Peter’s, the cemetery and catacombs at the base of the Festungsberg, a hill overlooking the city of Salzburg.

2

Frieden der Seele. Einsamer Winterabend, Die dunklen Gestalten der Hirten am alten Weiher; Kindlein in der Hütte von Stroh; o wie leise Sank in schwarzem Fieber das Antlitz hin. Heilige Nacht.

Oder wenn er an der harten Hand des Vaters Stille den finstern Kalvarienberg hinanstieg Und in dämmernden Felsennischen Die blaue Gestalt des Menschen durch seine Legende ging, Aus der Wunde unter dem Herzen purpurn das Blut rann. O wie leise stand in dunkler Seele das Kreuz auf.

Liebe; da in schwarzen Winkeln der Schnee schmolz, Ein blaues Lüftchen sich heiter im alten Hollunder fing, In dem Schattengewölbe des Nußbaums; Und dem Knaben leise sein rosiger Engel erschien.

Freude; da in kühlen Zimmern eine Abendsonate erklang, Im braunen Holzgebälk Ein blauer Falter aus der silbernen Puppe kroch.

O die Nähe des Todes. In steinerner Mauer Neigte sich ein gelbes Haupt, schweigend das Kind, Da in jenem März der Mond verfiel.

2

Peace for the soul. A lonely winter evening, The dark shapes of the herdsmen at the old pond; A baby in a cottage of straw; o how quiet The face sank into a black fever. Holy night.

Or when he, in his father’s calloused hand, Silently ascended Calvary’s grim hill And in the gloaming niches of the rocks The blue embodiment of man underwent his legend, From the wound beneath the heart blood ran crimson. O how quietly the cross stands erect in a dark soul.

Love; as the snow melted in black corners, A fair blue breeze picked itself up in the old elderberry, In the shadowy canopy of the walnut tree; And to the boy quietly appeared his rose-colored angel.

Joy; as an evening sonata plays in cool rooms, In the brown wood beams A blue moth crawled from its silver cocoon.

O the closeness of death. Inside a stone wall A yellow head bows, silencing the child, For in that March the moon decayed.

3

Rosige Osterglocke im Grabgewölbe der Nacht Und die Silberstimmen der Sterne, Daß in Schauern ein dunkler Wahnsinn von der Stirne des Schläfers sank.

O wie stille ein Gang den blauen Fluß hinab Vergessenes sinnend, da im grünen Geäst Die Drossel ein Fremdes in den Untergang rief.

Oder wenn er an der knöchernen Hand des Greisen Abends vor die verfallene Mauer der Stadt ging Und jener in schwarzem Mantel ein rosiges Kindlein trug, Im Schatten des Nußbaums der Geist des Bösen erschien.

Tasten über die grünen Stufen des Sommers. O wie leise Verfiel der Garten in der braunen Stille des Herbstes, Duft und Schwermut des alten Hollunders, Da in Sebastians Schatten die Silberstimme des Engels erstarb.

3

Pink daffodils in the mausoleum of night And the silver voices of stars, So that a dark madness eased in shivers from the sleeper’s brow.

O how still a walk down to the blue river Contemplating forgotten things, as one thrush called In the green branches to another during the descent.

Or when he, in the old man’s bone hand, Walked before the crumbling wall of the city at dusk And that old man bore a pink babe in a black coat, The spirit of evil appeared in the shadow of the walnut tree.

Groping across the green ascent of summer. O how quietly The garden rotted in the brown stillness of the autumn, That smell and melancholy of the old elderberry, For the silver voice of the angel died in Sebastian’s shadow.

46 | Polish

Prawdziwy portret autora

Jerzy Harasymowicz

Oto jestem, o włosach bez granic, o butach uśmiechniętych od ucha do ucha, stoję na tle świerków, w których gnieździ się moje serce (obok chromy zajączek zaznacza takt cichutko na piszczałce).

A oto moje serce: naiwne kurczątko w rozpiętym kaftaniku. Zaś moja praca to tokowiska kartek, których żywiołowy wrzask zabija patriarchalnych redaktorów, którzy uchodzą, zaangażowani w sprawie niebiańskich knedli... Oto jestem, a nade mną mój znak: potężna flaga lenistwa, zielona i niebotyczna.

Jerzy Harasymowicz (1933–1999) was a Polish poet whose work displays a great affinity with the Lemko community from the Carpathian region of south-eastern Poland. His first volume Wonders (Cuda) appeared in 1956, around the same time as the debut collections of Miron Białoszewski, Stanisław Czycz, Bohdan Drozdowski and Zbigniew Herbert. The poetry of this generation of writers represents a milestone in twentiethcentury Polish literature, signalling a clear departure from the social-realist poetry of the day. Harasymowicz went on to publish over sixty collections of poetry and his work has recently been the study of a major scholarly assessment by Ewa Stańczyk: Contact Zone Identities in the Poetry of Jerzy Harasymowicz: A Postcolonial Analysis (Peter Lang, 2012). The poems here are taken from Jerzy Harasymowicz - Wybór wierszy 1955-1973 [Jerzy Harasymowicz: Selected Poems 1955-1973], Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1975.