Those who carry grand pianos to the tenth floor wardrobes and coffins the old man with a bundle of wood hobbling toward the horizon the lady with a hump of nettles the madwoman pushing her baby carriage full of empty vodka bottles they all will be raised up like a seagull’s feather like a dry leaf like an eggshell a scrap of newspaper on the street Blessed are those who carry for they will be raised
This poem was originally published in Polish in Anna Kamieńska’s 1984 collection Dwie ciemności (Two Darknesses), © Paweł Śpiewak. It is translated into English by Grażyna Drabik and David Curzon in Astonishments: Selected Poems of Anna Kamieńska (Paraclete Press, 2007). Used by permission of the publisher.
Art & Theology 