Ogród

’This is no longer Eden / nor yet Gethsemane. Between Paradise / And the stamping press of sweat and blood’ [Już nie w Eden, jeszcze / nie w Getsemani. Między rajem a tłocznią potu / i krwi] – thus, in the collection The Garden [Ogród] Fr Jerzy Szymik describes his vital coordinates. The biblical history of salvation is the fundamental perspective here, which should not especially surprise us, since the author is a Catholic priest. However, one needs to add from the start that with these poems we are dealing with a poetry that is thoroughly modern. What strikes one most in reading them is the poet’s finger on the pulse, or perhaps the trembling, of our contemporary world. The poet is able to create an extraordinarily apt portrait of our reality, with truly surgical precision, plunging his blade – without anaesthesis – there, where the illness plaguing the world demands decisive incisions. And yet at the same time, he fosters with the tenderness of a gardener that which is fragile in us, delicate, in need of protection, beautiful. ‘I snip, I spread manure – and I’ll uproot / or plant, according to Your will’ [Przycinam, nawożę. Każesz – wyrwę. / Chcesz – zasadzę. Powiesz – zrobię]. With such words from the poem that opens the volume Fr Szymik intimates that, in order to deal with the world, and oneself, one must first listen for the voice of God.

In this book we find the sharply-toned Letter of a European to Athena Farrokhzad in Answer to Her “Letter to Europe” [List Europejczyka do Atheny Farrokhzad w odpowiedzi na jej „List do Europy“]. His polemics with the author considered to be one of the most important voices of contemporary Swedish poetry clearly shows where the front in the ideological and moral struggles runs, through our continent, and through Poland as well. A polar opposite to this can be found in the tender poems dedicated to the poet’s mother, his friends, music, and landscapes that take one’s breath away. The poet seems to assure us here that everything is not yet lost: ‘So the world turns still, Europe sways, / but we ourselves look not like people / who are tired of it all. Chris / Rea plays on our emotions, oleanders, / slippery, humid, flame and their aroma cries to the heavens’ [Świat więc się kręci, Europa zakręca, / a i my sami nie wyglądamy tu na ludzi, / którzy mieliby wszystkiego dość. Chris / Rea gra na naszych emocjach, oleandry, / śliskie, wilgotne, płoną i pachną wniebogłosy]. These are verses full of yearning for that love, which – as the poet believes – we will find at the end of our journey.