The first poems, so the poems that he wrote--
first poems that he wrote in the United States are--
you can tell that his--
first of all, he's learning this new place
but that his imagination is still in Europe.
And this poem is called "Two Men in Rome."
I should say that all of these poems
are the poems he wrote during this period.
They're all metrical.
They're all rhymed.
One of the reasons he didn't want to translate them
was because they were all rhymed.
And we would work it, work at his poems that rhymed
and try something, and he wanted them
to rhyme if they rhymed in Polish but he
didn't want them to say one thing that they
didn't say in Polish.
I've told this story many times, but there's
a poem of his from the war years in which a mother is telling
children a good night story called "Parable of a Poppy
Seed," and the poem goes roughly on a seed of poppy there's
a little house inside it or people and a cat
outside in the yard, a dog who doesn't
know he's on a poppy seed barks at the moon.
But the model for that was William Blake's Songs
of Innocence, which he was translating.
So he wanted it in the rhythm of a child's song,
and he wanted it to rhyme.
So what we did, what I did was,
On a seed of poppy is a tiny house.
Inside it are people, a cat, and a mouse.
Outside, in the yard, a dog barks at the moon.
And then in his one world sleeps until noon.
The Earth is a poppy seed and nothing more
And that seed's a planet, and that seed's a star.
And even if there were 100,000,
Each would contain a house and a garden.
All in a poppy head they grow taller than hay.
The children run through and the poppy plants sway.
And in the night when the moon is aloft,
You hear the dogs barking, first loud then soft.
And I thought, did I nail it?
I nailed it.
And he said, mouse?
There is no mouse in my poem.
And what kind of idiot doesn't know that poppy seeds are
taller than hay?
So I didn't even try with these poems.