Still
Inside the wagons air-tight
the names roll on through the night,
and what is their destination,
will they arrive at a station,
do not ask, I won’t say, I don’t know.The name Nathan beats its fist on the wall,
the name Isaac sings out of control,
the name Sara screams for water, to nurse
the name Aaron, now dying of thirst.Don’t leap out, you name Isaac, don’t leap,
you’re a name born to suffering and fear,
given no one, no rest-place, no home,
name too heavy to bear over here.Let your son bear a Slav name here daily,
for they count here each hair on the skull,
they divide here the good from the ill
by the name and the shape of the eyelid.Don’t leap out. Let your son be named Lech.
Don’t leap out. It is not yet the time.
Don’t leap out. The night’s laughter spreads black
with the clacking of wheels on the track.A huge man-cloud streams over the land,
from the cloud one tear falls, little rain,
a few drops, a dry time, just one tear,
the tracks in the woods disappear.That is that, click the wheels. Through the forest.
That is that, through the woods wagons’ chorus.
That is that. And I hear at night wakened by it,
that is that, the dull thudding of quiet on quiet.Wisława Szymborska