JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD. POLISH LITERATURE. ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI

Friday, Adar 5, 5777 · March 3, 2017

Shalom! World.


The City Where I Want To Live
By Adam Zagajewski


The city is quiet at dusk,
when pale stars waken from theier swoon,
and resounds at noon with the voices
of ambitious philosophers and merchants
bearing velvet from the East.
The flames of conversation burn there,
but not pyres.
Old churches, the mossy stones
of ancient prayer, are both its ballast
and its rocket ship.
It is a just city
where foreigners aren't punished,
city quick to remember
and slow to forget,
tolerating poets, forgiving prophets
for their hopeless lack of humor.
The city was based
on Chopin's preludes,
taking from them onlly joy and sorrow.
Small hills circle it
in a wide colar; ash trees
grow there, and the slim poplar,
chief justice in the state of trees.
The swift river flowing through the city's heart
murmurs cryptic gre(e)tings
day and night
fromm the springs, the mountains and the  sky.

Adam Zagajewski wrote this põem for Warszawa. He was born in Lwow (January 1, 1946, now Lyiv,  Ukraine & Then; Lvov, Ukranian SSR). The Zagajewski family (just like many other Poles) was expelled from Lwow by the Ukranians to central Poland the same year (1946) during the Polish population transfers in 1944 - 1946, following the World War  II.

Shalom! Aleichem.

Suporte cultural:  Jacob Jr. B.A.C.E., avec L'Integration d'Association avec Israel et dans le Monde/Cz.