Many letters in the house. One broken teacup. There’s nobody home.

 

I exchange my life for words.

Weak, uncertain currency.

*     *     *

Saint Augustine calls the kingdom of the saved “Jerusalem,” and the kingdom of the damned “Babylon.” Maybe that’s what Norwid has in mind when he says “I write from Babylon to Jerusalem—and the letters get through.”

*     *     *

As a spring makes its way to the light, to air. Its toil, its drudgery, its dark transit, like despair.

That’s how the poet works for words. Through muscles, movements. That’s how J.* wrote poems. He paced, he muttered, he waved his arms as though gathering and grasping words.

*     *     *

I wasn’t looking for God at all.

I sought my Dead One.

I’ll never cease repeating this, amazed.

-Anna Kamienska, from “Industrious Amazement: A Notebook“