Tuesday Poem: "Silk of a Soul" by Zbigniew Herbert

Never

did I speak with her
either about love
or about death

only blind taste
and mute touch
used to run between us
when absorbed in ourselves
we lay close

I must
peek inside her
to see what she wears
at her centre

when she slept
with her lips open
I peeked

and what
and what
would you think
I caught sight of

I was expecting
branches
I was expecting
a bird
I was expecting
a house
by a lake great and silent

but there
on a glass counter
I caught sight of a pair
of silk stockings

my God
I'll buy her those stockings
I'll buy them

but what will appear then
on the glass counter
of the little soul

will it be something
which cannot be touched
even with one finger of a dream

     -- Zbigniew Herbert (translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott)

To read more about the Polish poet and writer,  Zbigniew Herbert, read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Herbert


I like this poem because it has a sensual quality that really appeals to me. Enough said.