— Adam Ważyk

We fear the eyes of animals

we don’t trust pure snows

we forget the night sky

is like a glittering ant hill

we can’t address plants and birds by name

our children won’t come across hart and hedgehog running wild

nor the modest forest orchid

we don’t know how to nurse a shoot

to grow into a tree of silence

we don’t greet each other in the street with peace

we don’t cut an overcoat in half

we let the old die in corridors

we don’t trust big letters

we don’t respect the evidence of a stone in a field

we have not seen God

in any burning bush

We have learnt to jam effectively the voice of prophets

it is difficult to recognise them today

they are too old or too young

dried up liked plucked birds

or maybe plump but not resembling even poets

in sandals or shoes on bare feet

in a hat or in the usual halo of death

nobody would give a bent penny for them

and some cannot forgive them a little folly

they speak as though to themselves

they repeat their painful life stories

they always pay more for their bread

they are more solitary than is permitted

They march like stooping letters

over blind cities

they don’t seek salvation for themselves