"this flower shames me..."

* * *

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)

Jarek