Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

Otwock

Otwock15 Villas are abandoned wives,16 neglected by people and unoccupied. Fences are low, because there is no one to come Steal things at night. Narrow pathways—stiffened fingers in the park, And the trees, gravestones of someone's spent heart. No footsteps. No voices. Kho-kho-kho—a cough drifts down from an open window. Someone is dying there. Here my heart is a guest. My frightened blood races quickly. Am I here? Here, here, here, beats my heart. The earth here is combed back with snow and smoothed down, And no one has ruffled the path with footsteps. Only a vendor's shout echoes sometimes: Oranges! Who will buy them?" A hand juts out— Already a withered leaf:17 Prosz$ ls 99 II nana x - xi ypaxip pra^t Ta ojn p§ B»j?ovn is tinx naix ~n is pnx -n n ijn xi fx oy o w ^i px pn vK ypaxip x nya^x 100 II We are sick here—a multitude of locusts Fallen suddenly upon the whiteness Of the wintry wood. With mouths open in putrid breathing, We draw out a word like hoarse fiddles. Who still needs us,19 Wrapped up in shawls, with feverish eyes? And what use are we? Pines raise their branches high In order not to touch us, In order to shun us, shun us. We scream to the woods And spit blood into their fragrant roots. That's why the trees stir at night and tell How big is the cemetery here, And mock the dying To the last shadow of memory With their tall growth, with their fat trunks And millennial lives. I am here, too, solitary, Sick, wrapped in a shawl, And I step slowly in the snow among the trees, And no one knows That I am still myself. 101 IV ,OTIX Vxtpxn •trn -ljramgs px px •tn$"np x nco nya p K viyn on* ,0*13 71s DXD\2; EXW yxax: x wVo px ipyy pnxi ps ixp'o px n^^cix ]x -px p TX px nit x .ny^xn px Dyt?tr; ps •»iV3 px psnx ffD ,I^DX px 102 IV They arrive here still smiling, Like good friends arm in arm with death, From the tempestuous depot, In fashionable clothes And in Parisian hats. This is a spa. The young come, striding Carefree into the green, bearded city, Disappear there, and are lost. And a blossoming face Pales slowly, too, And a girl's round knee grows sharp. Like poor folk after a great, noisy fair, People drag themselves around here, back and forth, And hot fingers sometimes Grasp a brown tree trunk, As if a young heart were pleading With a tree in the woods: Save me! And an entire city lies Unhallowed before death, With open paths And trains—leeches sucking at its side, And no one can escape from there. And I, too, came here, bathed, In my white underclothes, A sacrifice to the forests, From cities and wandering. But my veins are limber And my blood is fresh. And maybe I am the only one who will Escape from this city unhallowed before death. 103 VI x pa 7x pa wxyHmx rx imypiya px ^n DXT 7X ix^ixs f nxn p§ TO ??a y^yprn px rpaxnj;^ pnjrt:^ p XTX ]y\> pyw wi XT "lya^p 7a Djm nyaxo |ix 0^ XT nyr^p m »yn njw^p px yStr; x eyiswaix i^xs pK D 1XS T^X ''ITX ^ nxs rx ^TX •a^ ]??a rx p^xs^s ,wi yw O^IVD px ,D"na x px ^i am ny^a x Ta px nx1 ' oy^y Dopsm'o pas^x ps Daynyacix ^?xrxa pa 7X >T»a-iy-i:ixYi x pa TX •fnxn p.?a wxyao^ix rx ^aypaya px 104 VI I am a wandering girl. My heart is practiced in longing. And when the day eats up the dew of the night, I tuck up the small white curtain from my window pane, And look upon a new street. There lies coiled up In a little corner of my heart Such a singular, trembling idea: Maybe no one here will love me. Maybe no one here will want to know me! But...