Poetry in Translation from English to Polish

At the Foothills  Poetry Festival on January 10, 2015, I read several poems translated into Polish. Even though Polish is my native tongue, I never write in Polish. Actually, I penned just one Polish verse, about a caterpillar sitting on the window-sill and being sad because it was raining and the caterpillar could not go to the movies. Yes, it was a children's verse. That's it. Somehow, poetry comes to me only in English - I started writing to be able to master English and express every nuance of meaning and emotion. I do have great forerunners in doing that - Joseph Conrad, or rather Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski, who became one of the great stylists of the English language.

In poetry - I was fascinated by bilingual edition of Apollinaire, a French poet of Polish descent. My mom had this book with strange experimental poems, letters scattered across the page, streaming down like droplets of rain. Amazing!  Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was a French poet and playwright of Polish descent, born Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki. He wrote one of the earliest surrealist plays, The Breasts of Tiresias, was founded in WWI and died in the Spanish flu pandemic.

I'm not dead yet, so there's hope I'll become a better Polish-language poet in time. It is a challenge to render one language in another in prose. Poetry is much harder because the melody and rhythm of the language has to be taken into account, not just the meaning.  My first poems that were published in Polish, in an anthology by the Krak Art Group, were translated by others, Konrad Wilk and Liliana Wilk. I translated my own poems for some other publications, such as Poezja Dzisiaj, in Poland - for a set of emigre poetry edited by Anna Maria Mickiewicz of London.  It is really as hard as pulling teeth for me. What I decided to do was to adapt and paraphrase, keeping the overall meaning and making sure that the Polish-language poem actually sounds like a poem and not a complete mess.

Here are some results.

MEMENTO VITAE      


Pomówmy o śmierci.
Twój ostatni oddech
To koniec – a może nie?
Nie wiesz nic.

Mówmy o ostatnim
Dniu. Co byś zrobił
Gdybyś wiedział?
Kogo byś kochał?
Czy szukałbyś swej najmilszej,
Najgłębszej miłości?
A może byś został wśród bliskich
Których dobrze znasz?
Czy okradłbyśkogoś,
Obrabował, obraził?
Czy zacząłbyś rozpaczać?
Wrzucił listy w ogień?
Gdyby kanwa twej przyszłości
Znikła? I zostałby ci tylko
Dzień? Lub godzina?

Mówmy więc o życiu.
Każdy oddech niesie cię
W taniec minut, sekund.
W rytm serca.

Właśnie tak.  


© 2008 by Maja Trochimczyk  

MEMENTO VITAE                  


Let's talk about dying.
The gasp of last breath.
The end. Or maybe not,
We don't know.
Let's talk about the last day.
What would you do
if you knew?
Whom would you love?
Would you find your dearest,
most mysterious love?
Or would you just stay
in the circle of your own?
Would you rob, steal
or insult anyone?
Would you cry?
Burn your papers?
If the fabric of your future
shrank to one day,
or maybe just an hour?

Let's talk about living, then.
The next breath,
that will take you
to the next minute,
the next heartbeat.

Just about – now.

© 2008 by Maja Trochimczyk
 

O  SZCZĘŚCIU

W domu z witrażami czereśni
usłyszysz jak kot śpi, chrapiąc w komforcie
ręcznie haftowanej poduszki

W domu świeżo ściętych róż
poczujesz jak powietrze zakwita
słodyczą cynamonu i muszkatu

Poczujesz smak miłości
zmieszanej z kroplami deszczu
na patio w mym magicznym domu

Gdzie wszystko, czego dotkniesz,
zmienia się w czyste złoto
szczęścia, które tak dobrze pamiętasz

ON BLISS

In a house of stained-glass cherries
you can hear a cat sleep
snoring into the comfort
of his hand-embroidered pillow.

In a house of fresh-cut roses
you can feel the air bloom
with the sweetness
of cinnamon and nutmeg.

You can taste love
mixed with raindrops
on the patio of my magic house
where everything you touch
changes into pure gold
of bliss, perfectly remembered.


(C) 2006 by Maja Trochimczyk
 

DEFINICJA LITERATURY

Nie chodzi o rozdzielanie zapałki na czworo
Czy liczenie diabłów na okrągłej główce
To wszystko nieważne

Patrz: wschód słońca nad Szczytem Truskawek
I Górą Rozczarowań tańczy na puchatym
Tłuszczyku pierwszych obłoków lata

Zobacz: świetliste linie na płytkim strumieniu
W kanionie błyszczą jak łuski karpia
Czekającego na śmierć w wannie przed Wigilią

Słuchaj: stada wron rozsiadają się na noc
Kanciaste kształty pokrywają czernią gałęzie drzew
Jak klastery, ostre akordy Xenakisa

Widzisz? Wrony kąpią się w rzece, rozciągają
Skrzydła na betonowym nabrzeżu, woda kapie
Dużymi kroplami – one nieświadome, drzemią

Jak wytatuowane, spocone tłumy wakacjuszy
Na zapiaszczonych ręcznikach w Santa Monica ,
Czekające na tsunami, którego nie będzie

Właśnie to jest ważne: spójrz inaczej – nie na siebie
Lecz we wszechświat, nie – na przegrane ambicje
Lecz na miliony gwiazd w galaktykach

Kosmiczne kolizje, wybuchy supernowych
Tysiące niezamieszkałych planet –
Możemy je policzyć, nie możemy dotknąć

Możemy dotknąć, ale nie policzyć
Cieniutkie linie na płatku róży, wyschniętym
w upale pustyni, choć zakwitł dziś rano

Nie o nas tu chodzi – rozejrzyj się dalej
uchwyć co przeminęło, zatrzymaj ziarno czasu
w swej otwartej dłoni – tę iskierkę, chwilę
 

DEFINITION: WRITING

in response to George Jisho Robertson’s essay “Path of Poesis”

It is not like splitting the match in four
or counting devils on its round head –
none of this matters, really

see the sunrise above Strawberry Peak
and Mount Disappointment shimmer
on the puffy underbelly of summer clouds

be dazed by bright ripples on a shallow canyon stream
shining like scales of a carp waiting to be killed
in a bathtub before Polish Easter

listen to the roosting birds at dusk,
the murder of crows covering tree branches
with angular shapes, dense Xenakis chords,

black clusters, dissonant, intense. They bathe
in the river, sit on a concrete bank with wet wings
outstretched, drooping with water, docile

like tattooed crowds resting, sweating
on sandy beach towels in Santa Monica,
waiting for a tsunami that will not come

shifting the gaze is important, from the navel
to cosmos – not how we fail in a multitude of ways,
but what graces hide in galaxies

that collide amidst exploding supernovas,
on thousands of inhabitable planets
we’ll count but never touch –

we’ll touch but never count
the veins on the petals of the rose
shriveling from desert heat, just opened

Not us, then, look around, beyond,
catch what's already gone, hold it
in your hand - the spark, the passing

Maja Trochimczyk © 2012
 

ETIUDA Z CZERESNIAMI



A ja chcę czereśnie
Słodziutkie czereśnie
Chce poczuć ciemne nuty soku
Na mojej skórze
Jak krople deszczowego preludium
W mżawce poranka

W obłoku fortepianu
Wspinam się na czereśnię
Szukam ukojenia wśród kruchych gałęzi
Cieszę się doskonałością czerwieni
Czereśniową muzyką od samego rana

Nasycona, śpiąca
Chowam się w ciemnościach strychu
By łupać orzechy, obierać gorzką skórkę
Odsłaniać biały miąższ
Studium w tonacji C-dur

Smakuję marzenia
Akordy płyną przez szpary
Starych belek wypełnione światłem

To codzienny rytuał mojej babuni
Popołudnie z Chopinem
 

A STUDY WITH CHERRIES

After Etude in C Major, Op. 10, No. 1 and a cherry orchard of
my grandparents, Maria Anna and Stanislaw Wajszczuk



I want a cherry,
a rich, sweet cherry
to sprinkle its dark notes
on my skin, like rainy preludes
drizzling through the air.

Followed by the echoes
of the piano, I climb
a cherry tree to find rest
between fragile branches
and relish the red perfection -
morning cherry music.

Satiated, sleepy,
I hide in the dusty attic.
I crack open the shell
of a walnut to peel
the bitter skin off,
revealing white flesh -
a study in C Major.

Tasted in reverie,
the harmonies seep
through light-filled cracks
between weathered beams
in Grandma's daily ritual
of Chopin at noon.

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

Christmas and New Year's Wishes

For the holiday season, I was asked to write something "Christmasy" for the party of Little Landers Historical Society at Bolton Hall in Tujunga. I thought that a recent poem for a married couple celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary would fit it quite well, if there was a carol in the text. I chose to quote a carol that remains one of the most beloved Polish carols, cited by Fryderyk Chopin in his Scherzo in B-minor, op. 20.


Married Christmas

May your path be smooth,
and your sunlight mellow
~ an old blessing

He said
“You are the apple of my eye”
She said
“Let us have tea for two”

Steam rises from bronze liquid
freshly-baked szarlotka waits its turn
scent of cinnamon sweetens the air
the music box plays an ancient carol

Lulajze, Jezuniu, moja perelko,
Lulaj ulubione me piescidelko

She does not have to finish –
one glance and he knows
after thirty-five years together
faithful like cranes on a Chinese etching

Their looking glass is hidden away
in a box of treasures they don’t need
to find blessings
among daily crumbs of affection


The carol's text incipit means: “Hush, hush, Baby Jesus, my little pearl, my lovely little darling…” – This ancient Polish carol is a simple lullaby, filled with tender love for the infant, held in the arms of his gentle mother. There are many lullabies among Polish carols; the focus of Polish Christmas is on the baby and his mother, on the familial love that binds them. The Lulajże Jezuniu carol is sung throughout the Christmas holiday season, from Christmas Eve to February 2nd, the Candlemas.

Last year, I was traveling close to Christmas, and the empty airports were full of fake cheer, recorded Christmas carols blaring from the loudspeakers and tinsel with childish decorations everywhere. The poem I wrote about that is similar in tone to the "Married Christmas" - extolling the virtue of the subtle affection, gentle understanding of a shared life, the true family virtue...



Rules for Happy Holy Days

Don’t play Christmas carols
at the airport. Amidst the roar
of jet engines, they will spread
a blanket of loneliness
over the weary, huddled masses,
trying not to cry out for home.

Don’t put Christmas light on a poplar.
With branches swathed in white
galaxies, under yellow leaves, the tree
will become foreign, like the skeleton
of an electric fish, deep in the ocean.

Clean the windows from the ashes
of last year’s fires. Glue the wings
of a torn paper angel. Brighten
your home with the fresh scent
of pine needles and rosemary.

Take a break from chopping almonds
to brush the cheek of your beloved
with the back of your hand,
just once, gently. Smile and say:
“You look so nice, dear,
you look so nice.”


This is the poetry of a moment in the kitchen, home cooking meals of the season and sharing a togetherness and affection that is quite beyond words, yet forms the very fabric of life.

Best wishes to all my poets friends!