Entitled “Break” (Polish title Złamanie), the poem was translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
It reads:
The arm I shattered on a bike,
meticulously reassembled by surgeons,
is now healing up in pain, and so it will be
for long weeks to come. Over the eastern border
of my country there’s a war on, the able skeletons
of men are grabbing weapons and going to get death
or life, in their skulls yin and yang merge
into one, as if they were parts of a spinning
bullet before it hits the target. Meanwhile my arm,
broken in three places, is slowly starting to
heal, which means I’ll miss out this summer
on bathing in the lake, Sunday trips to the beach,
catching fish, and even the sweet burden of my one-
year-old daughter, who looks at the plaster and twists
her lips into a horseshoe. Meanwhile on the front lines
healthy skeletons are fighting in a righteous cause,
crushing skeletons fighting in an evil cause,
and I know that for three more months I won’t be
able to wash myself properly. When I’ve healed up, I’ll be
part of the world’s skeleton again, but this
time, if I get shattered, then only for a worthy
aim, my mended arm will grab a weapon and set off
shoulder to shoulder with the freedom fighters, my index
finger will learn to pull the trigger of my rifle
tenderly—such thoughts went shooting through my head
as I lay in the recovery room.
But a few months on, when my plaster was removed,
with trembling hand I showed my little daughter
a plump sparrow perched on too thin a branch.
Tadeusz Dąbrowski was born in 1979. He has published extensively in Poland and abroad. He is the author of six volumes of poetry, two of which, Black Square and Posts, have been released in English. His work has been translated into 20 languages.
Dąbrowski has published his poems in The New Yorker since 2014. They were twice listed by the prestigious American magazine among the best poems of the year.
Tadeusz Dąbrowski. Photo: Grzegorz Śledź/PR2
Antonia Lloyd-Jones is among the most prolific translators of Polish literature into English. In 2012, she won the Found in Translation Award from the Polish Cultural Institutes in London and New York and the Kraków-based Polish Book Institute. The award is the highest distinction given to translators of Polish literature abroad.
Lloyd-Jones has been translating Dąbrowski’s verse for over a decade now.
Pixabay License. Image by Thought Catalog from Pixabay
(mk/gs)
Source: newyorker.com