Julia Fiedorczuk, the young Warsaw poet, has written some beautiful verse – well, we wrote about that here, after a magical April night in Berkeley that ended at Chez Panisse. Most of the poems that were read that evening came from a new anthology Scattering the Dark. But one, inspired by Czesław Miłosz, was not. I was not able to use print it at the time, since it was under consideration for publication by the Poetry Foundation, and Julia kindly gave us Psalm 2 instead. We’re pleased to say that Julia’s “Psalm 31,” was not selected (Psalm V was, and is published online here). So here is Psalm 31, all these months later, below. “The whole cycle rhythmically and poetically alludes to Miłosz’s translation of the Hebrew Psalms,” the poet said. We think so, too. Tell us which of the three psalms you like the best (all translated by Bill Johnston). I still think this one has the most Miłoszian bent. She sent it with her love from beautiful Warsaw:
Psalm XXXI
for R. K.
a chickadee had perched on the window-sill like a message
generated by the mist, October
was turning into November in the birches oaks alders,
in the frost-resistant flowers, in the cemeteries
where our fathers wrote no memoirs,
where they would not recognise our children, our
poems, ourselves. The television was showing Poland
that had perished, and then had not perished, and then
again had perished, and then not, and then the sun
flung up a mesh of branches, all at once
the chickadee was absorbed by sky before I could say
remember, remember me.
