Georgia Poem by Paul Snoek

1

the day swung open
like an oyster shell
I saw the white pearl
of light
and what the light lays bare.

the red breast of the mountains
the wonder of seeing a bird
and the happiness of peace
which is hairy and broad
like a summer wind
running around
with itself.

2

I sampled the sugar
from out of the air of Asia
like the juice
of a watermelon.

I drug my hands across each other
ten fingers of peace
through a garden of nothing but silence
were men grow eucalyptus
and women laurel.

I felt how my hands
plucked a girl from a cornflower
Vashiliki the corn-maiden
a name in a blue flower.


3

o little joys of a wanderer
who will gladly get lost
far away from himself.

the earth made
of the man in me
a picture that learned to be quiet.

she is the bridal gown
of the world
with here and there
the armpit hair of a bent tree.

the clouds white waterplants
and man a nerve-fish
in the bronze snow
of Caucasia
swims itself lost.

4

in the hands of the sea
I forgot
everything about the world
I couldn't forget
the death-color of a war
the implement of hate.

the black sea no black wound
but still like all water
a perfect gesture
that adorns the world.

and in the arms of evening
the wind sang a tea-picker's song
that entreats the day to joy,
the earth, the holy beast,
to a silent generation,
and the human, the mighty child,
to the seeds of peace.


august '54
Sukumi-Tbilisi
Georgia
Translated by Kendall Dunkelberg