REPORT FROM A BESIEGED CITY

Too old to carry arms and fight like the others-

I was mercifully given the supporting role of a chronicler
I write down-not knowing for whom-a siege's history

I have to be precise but I don't know when the siege began
two centuries ago in December September dawn yesterday
we here are all suffering from the loss of a sense of time

we were left only the place and an attachment to the place
we govern ruins of temples ghosts of gardens and houses
if we lose our ruins we will be left with nothing

I write as best I can in the rhythm of these endless weeks
Monday: stores are empty a rat is now the unit of currency
Tuesday: the mayor has been killed by unknown assassins
Wednesday: cease-fire talks the enemy interned our envoys

we don't know where they are that is where they were shot
Thursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of votes rejected
the motion of the local merchants for unconditional surrender
Friday: plague broke out Saturday: N.N. a staunch defender
committed suicide Sunday: no water we resisted an assault
at the eastern gate the one called the Gate of the Covenant

I know it's all monotonous it won't move anyone to tears

I avoid comment emotion keep a tight rein write on facts
it appears only facts have value on the foreign markets
but with a kind of pride I long to bring news to the world
of the new breed of children we raised owing to the war
our children don't like fairy tales they have their fun killing
waking and sleeping they dream of soup of bread and bone
just like dogs and cats            

in the evening I like to wander along the edges of the City
skirting the borders of our uncertain liberty
I watch from above an ant procession of troops their lights
I listen to the noise of drums and the barbarians shrieking
it is truly beyond me why the City is still defending itself

the siege is taking a long time our enemies have to take turns
nothing unites them apart from the desire for our destruction
Goths Tartars Swedes Caesar's men ranks of the Transfiguration
who can count them
the banners change their colors like a forest against the horizon
a delicate bird yellow in spring through green to winter's black

then in the evening freed from the facts I can meditate
on ancient questions remote ones for instance about our
allies across the sea I know they feel sincere compassion
they send flour sacks encouragement lard and good advice
they don't even know it was their fathers who betrayed us
they were our allies from the time of the second Apocalypse
the sons are blameless deserve gratitude so we are grateful

they have not lived through a siege long as an eternity
they who are touched by misfortune are always alone
defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds and the Afghans

now I write these words those who favor appeasement
have acquired an advantage over the party of the staunch
an ordinary  mood swing the stakes are still being weighed  

cemeteries are growing the number of defenders shrinking
but the defense continues and it will continue to the end

and if the City falls and one man survives
he will carry the City inside him on the paths of exile
he will be the City

we look into hunger's face the face of fire face of death
the worst of all-the face of betrayal

and only our dreams have not been humiliated

1982

Zbigniew Herbert: The Collected Poems 1956-1998