Here all the boughs belong to the dead,
they wave the boughs persistently in the wind;
do their young eyes still live in the photo albums,
I don’t know, they left the uniforms behind,
the wedding gowns, the first communion clothes,
naked they slither between the boughs;
is there a place to graze or picnic at God’s, I don’t know;
I can’t believe in mythologies,
I don’t quite believe only in decay,
to return to this earth in Spring, lash with rain,
to be a bright force, a bitter dandelion in the gravel.
Karol Maliszewski was born in 1960 in Nowa Ruda, Poland where he lives today. He teaches in the Journalism and Social Media Department at the University of Wroclaw [Breslau] in Poland. He has eight book of poems in Polish and seven books of prose.
He also published five books of criticism in Polish. He is the co-author of a textbook: “How to become a writer.”
Ewa Chrusciel is a poet, translator, and educator. She has four books of poems in English with Omnidawn Press: Yours, Purple Gallinule (2022), Strata, Of Annunciations, Contraband of Hoopoe, as well as three books in Polish: Tobołek, Sopiłki, and Furkot. Her book Contraband of Hoopoe was translated into Italian by Anna Aresi and came out in Italy with Edizioni Ensemble in May 2019. Her poems have been included in curricula at institutions such as Harvard University, University of Wisconsin, Dartmouth College, Salem State University.
She also translated various authors into Polish, including books by Jack London, Joseph Conrad, and I.B. Singer, as well as book of selected poems by Jorie Graham (2013), and aforthcoming book of selected poems by Vievee Francis (2027), and selected poems of Kazim Ali, Lyn Hejinian, Cole Swensen, Mathew Olzmann and other American poets.
She is a Professor of Creative and Professional Writing and M. Roy London Endowed Chair at Colby-Sawyer College.
