Tuesday, March 1, 2022

MARIAN DZIWISZ

 


MARIAN DZIWISZ

 

The Message Of An Agnostic

 

I.

Do not seek the light when darkness surrounds you,

because you carry the light within you.

If you know its power, it will guide you,

even when you have lost your sight.

 

II.

 

Do not seek love, for you will not recognise it,

if you have not discovered it in yourself.

You will only find an image of it

- Maya (Delusion) or Muse,

which will lead you astray

- will cause suffering,

will cause you not to see,

those who carry it within themselves

and want to share it with everyone

perhaps also with you.

 

III.

 

Do not seek wisdom unless you yourself

wise you have not become and truth from falsehood

do not know how to separate truth from falsehood,

for you will not find it in books or instruction

unless you yourself solve a simple task

and lost in the forest you will not find the way

- to your home.

 

IV.

 

Do not look for God in the temples,

If you do not carry him in your heart into them,

so that you can talk to him in silence and concentration.

You will not find Him in statues and paintings

nor in a confessor,

still less with politicians who legislate

by invoking His commandments.

Do not deceive others, because in the end

- you will deceive yourself

and you will not have peace of conscience.

 

V.

 

Do not look for fault in yourself,

when you were unaware of the deed

and do not allow yourself to be told

to your accusers,

because you are not responsible

for the death of Jesus on the cross,

but those who hold you responsible,

to kill your self-love

and take possession of your soul,

to make you faithful and submissive.

 

VI.

 

Never call an "inferior sort"

- the people over whom you exercise your authority,

because you will have to answer

- for their humiliation,

if not in a court of law,

but before the Righteous One,

who has ordered love and care

- to surround everyone with love and care.

©Copyright by Marian Dziwisz

 

 

 

The Power Of Art

 

There is a Power in art - a great and sublime Power,

which can save and awaken to action,

but, like the Archangel's sword, it has two blades:

one that spreads the wings of love and care

and raises to heaven.

The other defends the rulers and the tyrant's throne

- It gives birth to pain, death - destruction.

It drives us into shelters and makes us wait...

 

There is architecture, which builds temples

- luminous and beautiful,

in which every detail of art raises

- us to God,

but also creates fortified and dark palaces,

from which fear and trepidation are heard.

 

Music carries sounds - joyful luminous sounds,

if it flows from delight and love,

filled with the sound of meadows,

the song of birds in the foliage, the murmur of the wind

and the whispering of streams.

To the rhythm of this music the sheep gird themselves,

And people dance barefoot around bonfires.

There are Vivaldi's "Four Seasons."

Which bring the world of nature into the closed walls of a room or flat,

 bring the world of nature, caressing with sounds.

Even Gershwin's "silence" plays with such music.

 

In Chopin's music, as Norwid wrote:

There is "all Poland from the zenith

With all the perfection of history

Taken with a hymn of admiration---

Poland - of transformed wheelwrights".

In her you can hear all the sounds of her nature

The laughing and crying of children, the playing at weddings

but also the clang of arms on the battlefields

of the struggle for freedom of each uprising.

 

There is also the music of the "choirboy",

which captivates and holds in its rhythm

- so that dancing you will not leave the circle,

until you fall or die.

 

We know the music - full of pride, hubris

in which one can hear the clang of arms

- battle cries,

in it, as Herbert wrote:

the drum measures the rhythm and with its sound

- the equal step determines,

ready for death or victory,

for the heroism or fame of soldiers,

or to bury in dust everything

- that lives, just to save themselves and their ruler.

 

Finally, there is music - sad, funeral,

born of pain and sorrow.

In it you hear laments, cries, wails

And it knows no bounds, no solace,

it breaks into a pleading song:

"Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord".

 

Among the arts, there is poetry.

In it, the first poets

- "in their hearts searching

found the connection between being and non-being"

and described the history from the beginning

From the first flashes of light,

to the beating of the heart - in the human body,

from the birth of the gods to the present day.

Combined with music the songs became,

in which the people pray to the gods,

in which they praise love and the world's charms

and the tidings of the community are enclosed in stanzas,

which, after centuries, becomes, as in Mickiewicz:

"The Ark of the Covenant between old and young,

it is in it that the people lay down the arms of their knight,

their thoughts a yarn and their feelings flowers'.

 

 

For poetry encapsulates thinking,

which, when it comes from the heart - love and care,

keeps us alive despite the dangers,

advising us how to survive - to save ourselves and others.

It teaches respect for everyone,

irrespective of diversity of features and origins,

it opens the prison gates,

EQUALITY, FREEDOM, BROTHERHOOD

And PEACE - she proclaims to the world

It fills generations with joy.

 

But if, out of selfishness, desire for dominion

to possess everything that clings to the earth

the poet's thought and word are born,

it brings unrest and confusion

- it becomes a prison for free consciences.

In Time of Contempt Borowski wrote

about those who had everyone in humiliation:

"From their breasts blood blushes, in dead puddles it dies,

but before their mouths are choked, their breasts are trampled with a foot,

the dying throats cry out for a song, for a song'.

 

The moral of the story is

that art has many facets,

its power can do good

but it can also incite to evil.

©Copyright by Marian Dziwisz

 

 

Creation Of The World

 

Immense cosmic spaces,

eternally existing,

with all the richness of its inventory

into which matter is constantly changing,

living with energy, which with its light

- transforms

into "heavenly bodies" circulating in the Cosmos,

which, losing their powers over time,

sink into "black holes",

inside they glow and release from themselves

- new bodies, shining in the sky.

 

Among the wealth of various bodies in the Cosmos

is Mother Earth, who keeps giving birth

living beings, including man

and receives back into her bosom

- like a "black hole", all

that has finished its life, so that in its soil

can be reborn, like a grain of corn,

which has died, but which previously

- gave birth to it.

 

The world, then, was and is, although it is constantly changing,

it is of itself and no one created it,

 because it does not know the words that man

- uses.

 

But man was born for himself - in thought and word

- was born the moment he realised

that he has his own body and consciousness,

for which he did not go to Paradise,

because it appeared in him by itself,

when he found himself trapped in the desert,

hungry and naked, looking for a way

to his loved ones and his home.

 

Then - under the tension of will,

as in a "black hole" light

- a thought sparked,

and triggered thinking - thinking,

- put into words.

 

From then on, the word became a being,

and all that is not connected with it

"non-being" was called,

for as the Rigveda Hymn proclaims:

"The relation of being to non-being,

the soothsayers have found,

- searching in their hearts",

because the word changes the nature of the world,

so that it is understood by man,

First a thought, then the word "home"

- appears,

and then the trees are cut down

To build a home for the word.

This is how man changes what is into "non-existence"

Making the Earth subject to his thoughts and actions. 

 

And so in the songs of the first bards,

the world was created,

by naming what is

and what is changing, in order to make it useful

- for thinking and ruling

over the world and the fate of man.

 

It is with such a song that the "Torah" begins,

in which everything that surrounds people

is created through the word

- by the will of God,

for what he "said is done".

This is how the soothsayers brought the gods to life,

and recorded the history of the world.

 

What with heart, senses and thought

the soothsayers embraced,

they put into words, which for generations

became existence and science,

but that the word is ephemeral only

to memory, which is unreliable,

so they gave the word a meaning from a sign

- making it an entity, to which they created a dwelling

- in clay, stone or on paper,

because thought without embodiment - in words and writing,

is only a ghostly thought of thinking.

 

The written word becomes a being

and in the house of the Lord it has an eternal dwelling,

even when they put it to the grave,

in caves by the Dead Sea

or in libraries,

and sometimes a stone is thrown at it,

when it is discovered

brought to life by the touch of sight and the breath

of the one who reads it, it is resurrected

and lives among the living, like a figure from a monument.

And this is the truth and not a mystery of faith.
©Copyright by Marian Dziwisz

 

MARIAN DZIWISZ

 

Marian Dziwisz born 1943 in Michałowice near Kraków [Poland] - Doctor of Humanities; high school teacher of Polish language and university lecturer - philosophy. Former editor and secretary of the editorial board of the monthlies: "Zdanie", "Pismo Literacko - Artystyczne", "Forum Myśli Wolnej". A publicist, prose writer and poet.

 


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