Adam Czerniawski
Golden Age (For AC)
How could I have known that in my youth
I would experience the golden age : since as usual
there were wars, invasions, draconian reforms,
since the poor walked among us, the sick
suffered; and there were wolfish frosts when father
lost his job, and then floods and hunger;
newspapers wrote a lot about “the sinking ship
of our industry”, recalling
the long-gone golden age of disciplined
workers.Uncle Theodore shook
the pretensions of the New Art, mocked
the angry young menEven
mother, engrossed in the music of the garden,
sighed for the past perfect years,
mornings like silk, evenings like
safe havenNow in the mirror
I see the first grey hairs
I’ve suffered setbacks and defeats
experienced happiness and love
was never in Isfahan
I’ll probably never make it now
and I’m not sure I’m keen enoughNorwid’s dew
glistens in the grass on a hill covering
the bones of heroes : I wonder
if I should confess that this is our golden age,
but I lack the courage, something in me sobs
and trembles :“Tears, idle tears
tears from the depth of some divine despair :
rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
in looking on the happy autumn-fields,
and thinking of the days that are no more”
Translated by Iain Higgins
Page(s) 91-92
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