ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA

 

Blue Planet

 

I have this image of our beautiful planet in my mind.

This blue gem shines in the darkness of the universe.

It is a wonderful cradle of plants, animals, people

and was described as a paradise in the ancient stories.

 

I woke up terrified when this happy dream ended.

The green lungs of the Amazon have shrunk

and the world suffers from shortness of breath.

The vast ocean waters

 are covered with a thick layer of plastic

and the genetically modified plants

do not pour seeds onto the soil.

 

I ask a man:

“Do you know what it will be tomorrow?

 Did you forget who you are and where you come from?

Why did you recant your mother-Earth?”

 

You keep talking about money, profits, prosperity

and you draw  the bars

and worry about future incomes.

Instead of a dot at the end of your long lecture,

I saw one horrible word -  death.

 

 

Chopin

(A Triptych)

 

First love

The girl was beautiful and had a vibrant name

She sang romantic songs in a lyric soprano

and she opened heaven’s gates by her voice.

 

Frédéric caressed the ivory keys

to sound out the name of “Konstancja”.

The piano revealed the secrets

of their meetings and sighs.

The black notes danced the polkas joyfully,

changed to mazurkas

and left for the encore in a stately polonaise.

 

Their eyes met furtively in the stave.

The fate offered not much – a diamond ring,

Rossini’s “Lady of the Lake” at the farewell concert.

The forgotten angel departed,  

died in Skierniewice.

 

 

Summer 1847

 

George broke a wooden pencil in two.

She had the strength of her great-grandfather.

Anger and disappointment gave big power to her 

seemingly delicate hands.

At that moment she was a mother,

a woman, unprotected by a manly attire.

 

Auguste carved Solange in marble

and turned her daughter to stone

-unfeeling, indifferent, deaf to the voice of doubt.

Frederic failed her, too.

He left his lover and took the girl’s side.

 

Summer in Nohant was unbearably hot.

Every word raised the temperature.

The novel about Lucrezia Floriani

perished in the fireplace,

but fire did not burn the gossip and sadness.

Nine years of joy turned to ashes by a quarrel

about/over the right to love.

 

The extinguished feelings could not be rekindled

- it always pains when they die.

Loneliness in sickness turned coffee into cocoa,

and grand creations shrunk to the size of miniatures.

 

 

Paris, Spring 1849

 

Loneliness seeks familiar shapes and melodies.

The rattle of heels on the Paris sidewalks

 sounds like a polka dance,

 and a half-lowered store awning resembles a willow,

 just as lonely, torn by the wind.

 

Sadness and longing can be sung in sounds

that stubbornly occupy the restless mind.

The sounds of a mazurka rise and fall

in the rhythm of scattering sparrows.

Nearby, an older couple walks by,

stepping stately to a polonaise.

 

Choked by loud dry cough,

filled with crowds of people

and carriages flowing along wide avenues,

the city lacks the breadth of the fields of Mazovia.

Never succumbing to weakness,

he must attend elegant social gatherings.

 

 A concerto performance approaches.

No strength left to write down a fleeting composition.

The heart longs for Warsaw, for the family and old friends.

Sadness, the dark outline of the cross,

lays down on the gray face.

The shadow deepens disturbingly in the red sunset.

Time to return home, to Chaillot…?

 

ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA