ALEKSANDRA SOŁTYSIAK

 

Thinking About God

 

Since the first questions on arche*

the search for

You 

has relentlessly exposed the yearning.

Between the harmony of the elusive

and the timeless, you attract

human intuitions and become the source

of our desires.

It is your nature to actively partake

in the development of the world, directing

single events towards Your Godly Ideals.

You accept the roles of a Cosmic Poet

and a good shepherd.

Your reality is much different

from the physical world.

Each attempt to describe it shall resemble

the game of the shadows on the walls

of Plato’s cave.

My Creator, for me you are not

an abstract rule or a candidate

for the obituary in the heritage

of death-of-god theology.

You display what we became striving

for the creation we could have been.

Translated By Jakub  Sajkowski

 

(Arche – from Greek ἀρχή, ethymologically means a rule, a reason, and in the presocratic philosophy it means the primal reason of all being, the primal substace which made all things happen; at the same time it means the basic element of reality)

Aleksandra Sołtysiak

 

Spirit

 

Repleted with devotion

via the quiet torrent,

it spreads its wings

 

signaling from the depths of the continuum…

where the cosmos’ roads part ways.

With sighs of weakness

the age of truth’s inaugurated

in the hour of hunger,

sharpened in a flash

that illuminates the heights

of the gallery

of the universe.

Translated By  Jeremy  Pomeroy

…

 

 

The mist’s brisk shadow hinders the drops

that brush the edges of the eye’s empty pupil;

infallible elemental knowledge,

bounded by a degree of uncertainty

as to the naked current of remorse:

the ripped-out inner lining of conscience

doesn’t double back towards the Heavens,

yet the soul’s vault swells to hold the glory

of an as-yet unanswered prophecy

Translated By  Jeremy  Pomeroy

 

ALEKSANDRA SOŁTYSIAK

 

ALEKSANDRA SOŁTYSIAK (Poland), a graduate of the Catholic University of Lublin and of Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She has served as co-editor of the poetry anthology Dotyk nadziei (“The Touch of Hope”), which has been translated into Ukrainian and German, as well as of the international anthology in support of world peace Zieleni się drzewo pokoju / Poezja europejska w intencji powszechnej zgody / The tree of peace turns green / European poetry for universal harmony, which has been translated into Polish and English. She is also the author of Nadzieja kwitnie dłużej (“Hope blossoms longer”) and of the published poetry volume Wysypane ze szkatułki (“Spilled from the cases”). A finalist in the fourth International Poetry Contest “Voices in the Wilderness”, held in Rome (2022), her poems have been published both in Bulgaria and also in the Polish journals Akant, Poezja dzisiaj and Migotania, as well as on the online portal Pisarze.pl. She has also been awarded the Gold Cross of Merit by Polish president Andrzej Duda.