Krystyna Dąbrowska

trans. by Mira Rosenthal

WALL

A wall of ancient stones
and a wall of vertical concrete bars. 
A wall that supports from the base
and a wall like a blow to the face.

At one, all the soldiers—men
and women—pledge, pray, dance;
at the other, a girl in uniform
yells at a Muslim vendor.

In the holy wall tufts of green
grow from the crevices.
But not a single leaf can vivify
the wall that only divides.

A wall that chants its protest songs
in the angry language of graffiti.
Chorus of hidden slips of paper
tucked in a wall full of silence.

Krystyna Dąbrowska is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Ścieżki dźwiękowe (Soundtracks, 2018), and the winner of two of the most prestigious Polish literary prizes: the Wisława Szymborska Award and the Kościelski Prize. Her poems have been translated into numerous languages and anthologized widely. English translations of her work have appeared recently in Ploughshares, Harpers, The Los Angeles Review, The Threepenny Review, Tupelo Quarterly, New England Review, and elsewhere. She lives and works in Warsaw.

Poet and translator Mira Rosenthal is a past NEA and Stegner fellow, and her work appears in such journals as Poetry, Ploughshares, Guernica, Harvard Review, Oxford American, and A Public Space. Her first book of poems, The Local World (Kent State, 2011), received the Wick Poetry Prize. Her honors include a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, and residencies at Hedgebrook and The MacDowell Colony. She teaches creative writing and contemporary literature at Cal Poly State University. www.mirarosenthal.com.