And now to close this reading, I will
read a poem translated by Renata Gorczynska with CK Williams.
It's dedicated to one of my best friends
who's a very old Polish painter.
He's 93 and still very active and wonderful.
His name is Jozef Czapski, or Joseph Czapski in English.
The title is "Cruel."
"Cruel" for Joseph Czapski.
In the park the sound clue, birds sang.
Alone in the vast narcissistic forest overlooking Paris,
I pondered your words.
Cruel, the world.
Rapacious, carnivorous, cruel.
I circled the park the same clue, East to West,
West to East.
I strolled through the leafless chestnuts,
bowed to the dark bowing cedars.
Haired pine cones cracked by wrens and sparrows.
No beasts of prey in the park, other than time, just
them changing from winter to spring,
stripped, an actor flinging his costume away backstage
in the chilled wings.
Cruel, I thought.
Here is the killer, abided by police and by priests.
Even you indulge it, the protagonist of your paintings.
But is there a choice?
A milder, softer world?
Trees more exquisite, cedars with even darker needles?
More sumptuous feasts?
Moments of meditation that thrust
to the core of knowledge?
Is there a kinder time, eager to give back those we have lost
and to restore us to ourselves, pure and young?
A rose sky, tight, narrow ribbons of cloud.
The brown walls of prisons, hospital courts,
wailing corridors without end, the moments of meditation,
rhythm imperiled by fear and anxiety lies.
I circled the part the same clue, faster.
Faster, winter finished, spring not yet.
In the park, barren, bereft of its king.
I kept saying it.
Cruel.
Lizards and birds my only witnesses.
Then, through a dense mist, the white sand boiled.
I was impaled by sharp burps of bliss.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]