this flower
shames me
with its bitter proficiency at smell
I am unable
in the gold of simplicity
to look the rising sun in the eye
I do not know
how to confine the sun
in the hue of my words
like it
confines in the warm presence of petals
so with a fierce indifference
I annihilate
its luminous wisdom
tearing off petals
petal after petal
Halina Poświatowska
(Polish text Copyright 1989 Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków, Poland: translation by Marek Lugowski)