You know, I think more and more often.

by Tadeusz Borowski


You know, I think more and more often
that I should go back.
Maybe I’ll meet you. And happiness?
Happiness is being sad together.

So I look through the moonlit window
and listen.
Nothing. A breeze stirs somewhere.
Alone among the leaves - the moon.

Like a golden wheel it rolls
above the windblown leaves.
Such moons, only paler,
shone over the Wisla.

Even the Big Dipper on its course
stops in a tree at midnight,
just like at home. But why here?
Truly, I don’t know.

What’s here? Longing and sleepless nights,
unknown streets and somebody’s verse.
I live here as a nobody:
a Displaced Person.

I think of you. I know I must leave.
Perhaps we can return to our past,
but I know neither what youth will be like
nor where you are.

But I’m yours or no one’s
forever. Listen,
listen, read this poem
if somewhere you are alive.