Charles Simic: Snowy Morning Blues

Poetry by Charles Simic

Snowy Morning Blues

The translator is a close reader
He wears thick glasses
As he peers out the window
At the snowy fields and bushes
That are like a sheet of paper
Covered with quick scribble
In a language he knows well enough
WIthout knowing any words in it.

Only what the eyes discern
And the heart intuits of its idiom
So quiet now, not even faint
Rustle of a page being turned
In a white and wordless dictionary
For the translator to avail himself
Before whatever words are there
Grow obscure in the coming darkness.


December 21

These wars that end
Only to start up again
Somewhere else
Like barber's clippers
Or like these winters
With their bleak days
One can trace back to Cain

All I've ever done--
It seems-- is go poking
In the ruins with a stick
Until I was covered
With soot and ashes
I couldn't wash off
Even if I wanted to.



copyright: charles simic