I will not detach myself from the whole world and I will not deny my roots like a pine tree— O silent selfless approbation, how I have grown used to myself, how I have grown! I have burdened myself with hatred for my hands worn out like gloves and for my calves, which no running could drive to different-pathness for flesh— I have fallen upon myself in boredom, like a street you walk every day : on those houses where change is not celebrated I will not make out surprises, as in a poster— but—the sorcery of violence swarmed over me, and the snares of dreams set upon me: if I went out one night on the hunt... if I were to celebrate the idolatry of darkness, to hunt for the new moon in the poisoned weed... then to the Faustian devils for love toss the moon like a regal dime and for everything that was not to be once paid with a quack’s bribe; the witches of boilers and magpie jewels will conjure up my new eyes: I’ll unravel the unusual from everywhere. And I’ll tell of the wonders of everyday life, The heat and the cold will overwhelm me with a sudden revelation like a storm, in my own skin I will see a sharp miracle of cells yet born in tissue— the day will scour my heart with feeling as with this rod of ninefold trees— to the irises of most sensitive eyes there will be stinging signs from all sides see: my escape rushes ahead of me away from the ordinary, like unsavory Christmas trees oh betrayal that calls me: never repeat yourself— see: flight has led me through midnight into the inaudible hum but betrayal, you swarmed me with violence you set the snare of dreams for me you were a deception in my steps, a deception in damning spells, a respite after which the road matches in weariness even more O you, betrayal, fragrant with the venom of herbs, I have grown too used to myself, grown too much, I will not detach myself from the whole world and I will not deny my roots like a pine tree though I am already pregnant with boredom, like a street that I walk every day although on houses where change is not celebrated I will not make out surprises, as in a poster—
Zuzanna Ginczanka (1917-1945) was a Polish-Jewish poet of the interwar period. Her first and only collection, On Centaurs, was widely lauded in Poland upon its release in 1936. She was killed by the Gestapo no more than a few days before Kraków was liberated by the Soviets on 18 January 1945. She died at the age of twenty-eight.
Alex Braslavsky is a graduate student, scholar, translator, and poet. She writes scholarship on Russian, Polish, and Czech poetry through a comparative poetics lens. She has been an American Literary Translators Association mentee and her translations of poems by Zuzanna Ginczanka are forthcoming with World Poetry Books in Spring of 2023 and appear in Asymptote, Exchanges, and EcoTheo Review.
