I Would Like to Describe

In this incredible poem, Zbigniew Herbert begs to find what actually is, not a description, not a metaphor, but the actual essence. He knows there’s something, an actuality of what he is and how he exists, but he can’t put his finger on it. What is he really? What is anything? And when we sleep, where do we go? How can it be that we are here and at the same time conscious of the vastness of the universe, all at once? Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, whose rib was torn out to create his intimate companion, is what we perceive the externalization of the reality that we are, of which we’re made? The poem itself is a sample of the same perplexity, the same dance of unity and separation, of known and unknown. Somehow we’re unclear, and yet we know there’s an actuality. As the poem says, when we sleep and the body lies in bed, our consciousness roams freely and our feet join with the earth, that which is deepest underground. And in sleep, consciousness and body both remember that the literal meaning of the word “Adam,” is earth, and that the earth is also a planet among the stars.

I Would Like to Describe

I would like to describe the simplest emotion
joy or sadness
but not as others do
reaching for shafts of rain or sun

I would like to describe a light
which is being born in me
but I know it does not resemble
any star
for it is not so bright
not so pure
and is uncertain

I would like to describe courage
without dragging behind me a dusty lion
and also anxiety
without shaking a glass full of water

to put it another way

I would give all metaphors
in return for one word
drawn out of my breast like a rib
for one word
contained within the boundaries
of my skin

but apparently this is not possible

and just to say – I love
I run around like mad
picking up handfuls of birds
and my tenderness
which after all is not made of water
asks the water for a face

and anger
different from fire
borrows from it
a loquacious tongue

so is blurred
so is blurred
in me
what white-haired gentlemen
separated once and for all
and said
this is the subject
and this is the object

we fall asleep
with one hand under our head
and with the other in a mound of planets

our feet abandon us
and taste the earth
with their tiny roots
which next morning
we tear out painfully

– Zbigniew Herbert –

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