Luxembourg Garden

Parisian apartment houses fear neither wind nor imagination
– they’re ponderous paperweights,
the antitheses of dreams.

White boats race along the river, filled with crowds
demanding greetings from those who stand on shore;
their effervescence liquidates the past.

A pair of wealthy tourists emerges from a cab
in gleaming garb; they’re served by waiters
wearing frock coats that fashion cannot change.

But the Luxembourg Garden grows empty now
and becomes a giant, mute herbarium;

it’s forgotten all those who once
strolled its paths and haven’t noticed they’re no longer living.

Mickiewicz lived here, and there August Strindberg
labored over the philosopher’s stone
he never found.

Dusk falls. Solemn night, taciturn and worried,
arrives from the east.
The night comes from Asia and doesn’t ask questions.

Foreignness is lovely, a cold joy.
Yellow lights illuminate the windows on the Seine
(something truly enigmatic: other people’s lives).

I know – there’s no mystery here now.
But there are plane trees, squares, cafés, friendly streets,
and the bright gaze of clouds that slowly dies.