And towards the end of the 1960s,
I begun doing those big blue books
that I think people know me by best, Technicians
of the Sacred the first of them, and then
decided to explore ancestral sources of my own
in a world of Jewish mystics, thieves, and madmen.
So a series of poems called "Poland 1931."
I was born in Brooklyn, my parents from Poland.
1931 was the year of my birth.
And some years after I wrote the poem that opens the book,
a man named Amos Schaus translated it
into Yiddish, which some people thought was the original
and that I had been translated into English.
Not so.
But I'll start with a few lines from the Yiddish translation
"Poland 1931."
"The Wedding" is what it is in English.
Polyn 1931, Di Khaseneh. mayn miyakh iz ongeshtopt mit
tishtekher un mit fingerlekh ober mayn miyakh kholemt fun
poyln ongeshtopt mit poyln in dimiyen gebrakht tsu
a shvartseh khaseneh a naketer khosn shvebt iber zayn naketeh
kaleh metirifdikeh poyln vi shreklekh dayneh yidn oyf
khasenehs dayneh shulen mit kamfer reykhehs un mandlen
dayneh termosen dayneh elektrishe tumanen
[SPEAKING YIDDISH] dayneh untervesh lebedik mit
vurtseln oy poyln poyln poyln poyln poyln poyln
Poland 1931, The Wedding.
My mind is stuffed with tablecloths and with rings,
but my mind is dreaming of Poland stuffed with Poland,
brought in the imagination to a black wedding,
a naked bridegroom hovering above his naked bride.
Mad Poland, how terrible thy Jews
at weddings, thy synagogues with camphor smells and almonds,
thy thermoses, thy electric fogs, thy braided armpits,
thy underwear alive with roots.
O, Poland.
Poland, Poland, Poland, Poland, Poland.
How thy bells wrapped in their flowers toll.
How they offer up their tongues to kiss the moon,
old moon, old mother stuck in thy sky,
thyself an old doll with no tongue, a lost art.
O, Poland.
Thy beer is ever made of rotting bread.
Thy silks are linens merely.
Thy tradesmen dance at weddings where fanatic grooms still
dream of bridesmaids.
Still are screaming past their red mustaches, Poland.
We have lain awake in thy soft arms forever.
Thy feathers have been balm to us,
thy pillows capture us like sickly wombs and guard us.
Let us sail through life, fierce weddings, Poland.
Let us dread thy markets where thy sausages grow
ripe and full, let us bite thy peppercorns,
let thy oxins dung be sugar to thy dying Jews.
O, Poland.
Oh sweet, resourceful, restless Poland.
O, Poland of the saints, unbuttoned Poland,
repeating endlessly the triple names of Mary.
Poland, Poland, Poland, Poland, Poland.
Have we not tired of thee, Poland.
No, for thy cheeses shall never tire us, nor the honey of thy
goats.
Thy grooms shall work ferociously
upon their looming brides.
Shall bring forth executioners, shall
stand like kings inside thy doorways,
shall throw their arms around thy lintels, Poland,
and begin to crow.