At the Gate of the Valley

^{translated from the Polish by Czesław Miłosz and Peter Dale Scott}

After the rain of stars
on the meadow of ashes
they all have gathered under the guard of angels

from a hill that survived
the eye embraces
the whole lowing two-legged herd

in truth they are not many
counting even those who will come
from chronicles fables and the lives of the saints

but enough of these remarks
let us lift our eyes
to the throat of the valley
from which comes a shout

after a loud whisper of explosion
after a loud whisper of silence
this voice resounds like a spring of living water
it is we are told
a cry of mothers from whom children as taken
since it turns out
we shall be saved each one alone

the guardian angels are unmoved
and let us grant they have a hard job

she begs
—hide me in your eye
in the palm of your hand in your arms
we have always been together 
you can’t abandon me
now when I am dead and need tenderness

a higher ranking angel
with a smile explains the misunderstanding

an old woman carries
the corpse of a canary
(all the animals died a little earlier)
he was so nice—she says weeping
he understood everything
and when I said to him— 
her voice is lost in the general noise

even a lumberjack
whom one would never suspect of such things
an old bowed fellow
catches to his breast an axe
—all my life she was mine
she will be mine here too
she nourished me there
she will nourish me here
nobody has the right
—he says—
I won’t give her up

those who as it seems 
have obeyed the orders without pain
go lowering their heads as a sign of consent
but in their clenched fists they hide
fragments of letters ribbons clippings of hair
and photographs
which they naïvely think 
won’t be taken from them

so they appear
a moment before
the final division
of those gnashing their teeth
from those singing psalms