Poem

Urszula Koziol

Side by side

Original language

psalm

liberated from me you shan’t free yourself of me
while you’re in me I’ll keep repeating you

it is enough to notice it for it to take possession. And it pays
by remaining
in the inadvertent host

complementary exchange:
a tree within us and us within the tree
entrusted to endure
multiplied leaf by leaves

and divided by the word
and separated by the flesh
we find ‘it’
in what eyes perceive

no distance will keep us distant while
you’re inside me

at the point the place
where I shan’t find you

there in the final scattering
divisible multipliant
I shall be whole

© Translation: 1999, Barbara Plebanek and Tony Howard

PSALM

© 1999, Ursula Koziol
From: Stany Nieoczywistoœci
Publisher: PIW, Warszawa

Urszula Koziol

Urszula Koziol

Urszula Koziol was born in southeast Poland and has lived and worked in Wroclaw since 1950, where she studied Polish and taught for a number of years. Since 1968 she has edited the literary magazine Odra, to which she contributes a highly original column. She has published eight volumes of poetry, two novels, short stories and plays for radio and the theatre.

Countries

Discover other poems and poets from Poland

Poems Poets

Languages

Discover other poems and poets in Polish

Poems Poets

Poems

Poems of Urszula Koziol

psalm

Close

psalm

liberated from me you shan’t free yourself of me
while you’re in me I’ll keep repeating you

it is enough to notice it for it to take possession. And it pays
by remaining
in the inadvertent host

complementary exchange:
a tree within us and us within the tree
entrusted to endure
multiplied leaf by leaves

and divided by the word
and separated by the flesh
we find ‘it’
in what eyes perceive

no distance will keep us distant while
you’re inside me

at the point the place
where I shan’t find you

there in the final scattering
divisible multipliant
I shall be whole

© 1999, Barbara Plebanek and Tony Howard
From: Stany Nieoczywistoœci

psalm

liberated from me you shan’t free yourself of me
while you’re in me I’ll keep repeating you

it is enough to notice it for it to take possession. And it pays
by remaining
in the inadvertent host

complementary exchange:
a tree within us and us within the tree
entrusted to endure
multiplied leaf by leaves

and divided by the word
and separated by the flesh
we find ‘it’
in what eyes perceive

no distance will keep us distant while
you’re inside me

at the point the place
where I shan’t find you

there in the final scattering
divisible multipliant
I shall be whole

© 1999, Barbara Plebanek and Tony Howard

Sponsors

Partners

LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère