Great ships

Our days already existed and our hearts baked
in the blazing stove,
And the moment when I met you may also have existed,
and my mistrust
Brittle as a faience plate, and my faith, no less frail
and capricious,
And my searches for the final answer, my
disappointments and discoveries.

Great ships: some sunk suddenly, arousing consciences
and fear,
Gaining deathless fame, becoming stars
of special bulletins.
Others went peacefully, waned without a word in provincial
ports, in dockyards,
Beneath a coat of rust, a ruddy fur of rust, a slipcover of rust,
and waited
For the final transformation, the last judgment of souls and
objects,
They wait as patiently as chess players in Luxembourg Garden

  nudging pieces a fraction of an inch or so.

~ Adam Zagajewski ~