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Now and then a horsetail needle lands on the sun’s old
disc of nature sounds: the whisper of the wind, the splash
of water and the twitter of birds. Windscreen wiper
reeds regularly smear the horizon.
In a surge of energy fishes dive into the sky,
then instantly know where they’re going (swimming)
after death. Conjoined dragonflies mimic
our comical movements and fly right round
the pond with this performance, raising a thunderous cackle.
The storm discharges itself on us, and apart from fear
nothing unites us any more as we run from the meadow,
to perish in vain not far away
under the wheels of the night.
Tadeusz Dąbrowski is a poet, essayist, and critic. He is editor of the literary bimonthly Topos and the art director of the European Poet of Freedom Festival. His book Black Square has been translated into English. He has been published in many journals in Poland and abroad, including The New Yorker, Boston Review, Agni, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Tin House, Harvard Review, Little Star, Crazyhorse, The Common, and Poetry Daily. He lives in Gdańsk on the Baltic Coast of Poland.
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