Describing Pictures
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We usually catch just a few details— grapes from the seventeenth century, still gleaming, and perhaps a fine ivory fork, or a cross's wood and drops of blood, and great suffering, which has already dried. The shiny parquet creaks. We're in a strange town— almost always in a strange town. Somewhere a guard stands and yawns. An ash's branch sways outside the window. Describing static pictures is remarkably absorbing. Scholars devote theses to it. But we're alive, full of memory and thought, and at moments feel a special pride since the future shouts in us and its hubbub makes us human.
Adam Zagajewski, who was born in Poland, is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prose. His books of poems and essays in English-language include Tremor (1985), Canvas (1991) Mysticism for Beginners (1997), Without End (2000), Solidarity, Solitude (1990), Two Cities (1995), Another Beauty (2000), and A Defense of Ardor (2004). Much of his work has also been translated from Polish to German, Swedish, and French. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.
