“Mr. Cogito Considers The Difference Between The Human Voice And The Voice Of Nature”

By Zbigniew Herbert

The oration of the worlds is untiring

I can repeat all of it from the beginning
with a pen inherited from a goose and Homer
with a diminished spear
stand in front of the elements

I can repeat all of it from the beginning
the hand will lose to the mountain
the throat is weaker than a spring
I will not outshout the sand
not with saliva tie a metaphor
the eye with a star
and with the ear next to a stone
I won’t bring out stillness
from the grainy silence

and yet I gathered so many words in one line—longer than all the lines of​ my palm and therefore longer than fate in a line aiming beyond in a line​ blossoming in a luminous line in a line which is to save me in the column of​ my life—straight as courage a line strong as love—but it was hardly a​ miniature of the horizon

and the thunderbolts of flowers continue to roll on the oration
                                         of grass the oration of clouds
choruses of trees mutter rock blazes quietly
the ocean extinguishes the sunset the day swallows the night
                                         and on the pass of the winds

new light rises

                           and morning mist lifts the shield of islands

[From 𝘚𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘰𝘦𝘮𝘴, Herbert 1974, translated by John & Bogdana Carpenter?]