FROM THE LIVES OF THINGS

The perfect skin of things is stretched across them
as snugly as a circus tent,
Evening nears,
Welcome, darkness.
Farewell, daylight.
We're like eyelids, assert things,
we tough eyes, hair, darkness,
light, India, Europe.

Suddenly I find myself asking: "Things
do you know suffering?
Have you cried? Do you know fear,
shame? Have you learned jealousy, envy,
small sins, not of commission,
but not cured by absolution either?
Have you loved, and dies,
at night, wind opening the windows, absorbing the cool heart? Have you tasted
age, time, bereavement?"
Silence.
On the wall, the needle of a barometer dances.


Adam Zagajewski