KRYSTYNA KONECKA

KRYSTYNA KONECKA

ARCHIPELAGO

Children’s heaven of Mazurian cormorant island…

Mljet – a leaf on the Adriatic… Quiet love (neighbour

under the floor full of holes – donkey neighed till morning).

Years on the run and in the flight. Time set patina

above Paris Notre Dame on Ile de la Cite…

And already Korean Jeju-do turns into

oblivion… this beauty with a volcanic summit,

dragon of pumice, my laughter with women shamans.

Great Britain, or Albion – as you wish. Warm like homely

fireplace. Still. With tenderness I embrace a crumb

of Baltic-created gneiss – Klovharun where Tove

Jansson just like a lighthouse keeps enticing the trolls.

Now into Iceland I put my hands as in the flames.

Here’s my archipelago. And time. And fulfilment…

TRANSLATED BY EWA SHERMAN, ENGLAND

SNAKE’S HEAD

I live on a snake’s head. Alien among the Nordic

myths. The ocean on all sides. And the snake in the depths

is the inactive basaltic Mid-Atlantic Ridge

strapping the Jurassic spacing of the continents.

His tongue is so much older than the head of serpent.

It has been split thanks to expansion of the fjords: two

audacious peninsulas frayed by the glacial times

and facing towards the white horizons of Greenland.

Island, the head, is still carved by cosmic Pygmalion

with fury of waves, winds, fire from lifeless crater.

In brief sun glacier will glisten like a medallion.

Tomorrow a soaring geyser will blow you away.

Your otherworldly beauty in the smallest detail

I’ll close in memory’s vault, oh, Ultima Thule…

TRANSLATED BY EWA SHERMAN, ENGLAND

IF I WERE A PUFFIN

So if the Latrabjarg was my home… in the spring

we would flutter from the depths – the flying marine clowns

to our sheltered hideaways for the love moments.

And he would have kept our white egg under the wing.

Him – the Arctic brother, and me, also – a brother.

We are not divided by dimorphism, plumage, smell.

Peculiarly swaying a fish in the parrot’s beak

I would for ever be beautiful with my duck’s feet.

And no one would recognize whether I – he or she.

Maybe away from murderers before they catch me

as prey to feed the tourists, black-winged  I will escape.

Only a stone does not fight, unlike a puffin girl.

I would become legend of sailors and fishermen,

their posthumous incarnation. Shame that I will not…

TRANSLATED BY EWA SHERMAN, ENGLAND

KRYSTYNA KONECKA

KRYSTYNA KONECKA is a poet, journalist and photographer. She lives in Poland (Bialystok). She has a MA degree in Polish Philology (Warsaw University) and she completed postgraduate studies of Culture and Education (Silesian University). She has been working in journalism  and contributed articles to many magazines published in Warsaw. She has been working as photographer for a number of years and her numerous photographs have been published in magazines and presented at various exhibitions. Krystyna Konecka is a member of The Polish Writers’ Union (Warsaw branch). In poetry she favours sonnets. She is an author of nearly twenty books of poetry and reportages. Her poems have been published in Polish and foreign periodicals and anthologies. For her achievements poetry and journalism (reportages on social issues, literary and theatrical criticism, articles on the culture) Krystyna Konecka has received literary awards and was highly regarded by critics. She attends the international literary meetings.