Zbigniew Herbert

I've been messing about doing some translations of Polish poets lately. Here's a translation of a poem from Zbigniew Herbert's book of poems Hermes, Dog and Star (1957).

Voice

I go to the sea
to hear this voice
between the blow of one wave
and another

but the voice is absent
there is only the senile chatter of the water
salty nothing
the wing of a white bird
dried to a stone

I go to the woods
where the uninterrupted
hum of the immense hour-glass
pours leaves onto black-earth
black-earth onto leaves
the imposing jaws of insects
entertain the earth's silence

on the field
green and gold sheets
reinforced with the spikes of insectine existence
ringing at every touch of wind

where is this voice it should
speak-up when at last
the inexhaustible monologue
of the earth falls silent

nothing but murmurs
clapping explosions

I return home
and experience presents
itself as an alternative
either the world is mute
either I'm deaf

or possibly
we are both
scarred with disfigurement

we must therefore
take one another by the arm
go forth
toward new vistas
toward the atrophied throats
from which one can pluck
incomprehensible babble