WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
ABC
I’ll never find out now
What A. thought of me.
If B. ever forgave me in the end.
Why C. pretended everything was fine.
What part D. played in E’s silence.
What F. had been expecting, if anything.
Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What H. had to hide.
What I. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.
[from The New Yorker, December, 2004]
A is for Awe, how nice.
B is for Brave.
C is for Come on.
D is for Dance!
Ever since grade school I have had a passion for:
Hand writing
The Alphabet
Alphabetical order
All things about the alphabet…… ours and others
They wrote on clay
They carved steles
I wrote on textiles
……………and how about tea and a snack at the camp today Sunday, 1:30?
I’ll watch YOU play with the ABC stuff in your inimitable way.
The Thirty Years War
Sparked by Martin Luther
Who translated the Bible and Qu’ran to stir
His Gutenburg-literate flock’s core
Beliefs which held aloft no statuary martyrs;
No gold poured as goblets filled with intoxicants;
No saints; no granite-buttressed monuments;
Just the Plainsong Church’s wooden four corners
Whose doors slammed shut
Against the Medici Roman Curia
And its extortionate
Indulgences taxed under Medici Papist Law
Were seen as food taken off Reformist children’s plates–
Islamic dominion was favored over a Catholic Hapsburg’s State.
Thus, for thirty years, the draconian machinery
Of War and Plague lopped heads and limbs
Destined for frozen indiscriminate ends
In an Inferno designed by Dante.
Twenty-five percent of Germania
Died in it, well-precedented as well-oppressed
Evolving industrial warfare which later blitzed
Jewry in World-War II’s Germanic Golgotha.
Yet Fear and Temptation are objective
and subjective as Doubt and Despair
Done in Luther’s applied perspective
When realistically addressed to the “vivid air” [Spender]
As from his pulpit before the Stake of Reform
Burned brighter than Marx in the ensuing global storm.
— Billevich to Radziwill,
“Whoso has done more for his country in these times, let him stand before my eyes.”
“True, a blind man could see that; but it will be very sad for the nobles that a free election will cease.”
“And which is more important, — an election or the country?”
“They are the same, your highness; for an election is the main basis of the Commonwealth.
Deluge II, 522 Sienkiewicz/Curtin
Who shall lead?
Well then, Boguslav Radziwill!
Self-assigned with Duchies to tax-bill;
Who so else shall heed?
For funds, armaments, troops and cannon
to support the law with arms and chivalry
Led by his family prized to this modern day
For Radzivill of Birji, who was able to alone
Change the religious conflict to Prussian Elector politics
To abolish the rule of Rzeszpublic Schlacta,
Polish Noble Electors who mimic the Greeks;
In barring slaves and women from the Pact
Must then this “Electoral” business detract
From local rule and tax collection for the Swedes
Into Autocrat Radziwill’s coffers, must needs!
“And what is the country, if not a collection of laws,
privileges, and liberties serving the nobles?
A king can be found even in a foreign land.” Passim, Kmicic.