My friend, you will ask, who ordains
that the speech of a blessed fool should burn?
Let’s scatter our words
As the garden scatters amber zest,
Absentmindedly and generously
Bit by bit by bit.
Let’s not discuss
Why the leaves are patterned
So formally
With ruby and lemon.
Who welled up with needles
And gushed through the slats,
The floodgate blinds,
Onto the music books in the shelf.
Who dyed the outdoor mat
With rowan berries
Like a canvas of diaphanous,
Trembling italics.
You will ask, who ordains
That August should be great,
For whom is nothing too small,
Who is absorbed with etching
A maple leaf
And who, from the time of Ecclesiastes,
Hasn’t quit his post
Hewing alabaster?
You will ask, who ordains
That the September lips
Of asters and dahlias should suffer?
That the fine leaves of broom
Should waft from greying caryatids
Onto the damp flagstones
Of autumn hospitals?
You will ask, who ordains?
—The all-powerful God of details,
The all-powerful God of love,
Of Jagailos and Jadwigas.
I don’t know if the dark riddle
Of the tomb has been solved;
But life, like autumn
Silence, is in the details.