Cup your hands to scoop up sleep <br />as you would draw a grain of water <br />and the forest will come: a green cloud <br />a birch trunk like a chord of light <br />and a thousand eyelids fluttering <br />with forgotten leafy speech <br />then you will recall the white morning <br />when you waited for the opening of the gates <br /> <br />you know this land is opened by a bird <br />that sleeps in a tree and the tree in the earth <br />but here is a spring of new questions <br />underfoot the currents of bad roots <br />look at the pattern on the bark where <br />a chord of music tightens <br />the lute player who presses the frets <br />so the silent resounds <br /> <br />push away leaves: a wild strawberry <br />dew on a leaf the comb of grass <br />further a wing of a yellow damselfly <br />and an ant burying its sister <br />a wild pear sweetly ripens <br />above the treacheries of belladonnas <br />without waiting for greater rewards <br />sit under the tree <br /> <br />cup your hands to draw up memory <br />of the dead names dried grain <br />again the forest: a charred cloud <br />forehead branded by black light <br />and a thousand lids pressed <br />tightly on motionless eyeballs <br />a tree and the air broken <br />betrayed faith of empty shelters <br /> <br />that other forest is for us is for you <br />the dead also ask for fairy tales <br />for a handful of herbs water of memories <br />therefore by needles by rustling <br />and faint threads of fragrances-- <br />no matter that a branch stops you <br />a shadow leads you through winding passages-- <br />you will find and open <br />our Ardennes Forest<br /><br />Zbigniew Herbert<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ardennes-forest/
