The Poem „Campo di Fiori"

CAMPO DI FIORI (Rescue)

In Rome on the Campo dci Fiori
Baskets of olives and lemons,
Cobbles spattered with wine
And the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
With rose-pink fish;
Armfuls of dark grapes
Heaped on peach-down.

On this same square
They burned Giordano Bruno.
Henchmen kindled the pyre
Close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
The taverns were full again,
Baskets of olives and lemons
Again on the vendors' shoulders.

I thought of the Campo dei Fiori
In Warsaw by the sky-carousel
One clear spring evening
To the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
The salvos from the ghetto wall,
And couples were flying
High in the cloudless sky.

At times wind from the burning
Would driff dark kites along
And riders on the carousel
Caught petals in midair.
That same hot wind
Blew open the skirts of the girls
And the crowds were laughing
On that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.

Someone will read as moral
That the people of Rome or Warsaw
Haggle, laugh, make love
As they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
Of the passing of things human,
Of the oblivion
Born before the flames have died.

But that day I thought only
Of the loneliness of the dying,
Of how, when Giordano
Climbed to his burning
There were no words
In any human tongue
To be left for mankind,
Mankind who live on.

Already they were back at their wine
Or peddled their white starfish,
Baskets of olives and lemons
They had shouldered to the fair,
And he already distanced
As if centuries had passed
While they paused just a moment
For his flying in the fire.

Those dying here, the lonely
Forgotten by the world,
Our tongue becomes for them
The language of an ancient planet.
Until, when all is legend
And many years have passed,
On a great Campo dci Fiori
Rage will kindle at a poet's word.

Warsaw, 1943
translated by Louis Iribarne
and David Brooks

It was created in 1943. The poem starts with the picture of Roman square - Campo di Fiori - place, where „ they burned Giordamo Bruni". In the description of Campo di Fiori one can notice in the foreground the colorful market full of flowers, fruits and vegatables. The squere lives and it is emphasized. In the background, lonely Giordamo Bruno waits for his death. this fact does not distract the joyful atmosphere of the square. This picture is linked in the poem with the picture of Warsaw 1943. Also in this case one can speak about the jaunty atmosphere. Spring evening, clear sky, merry-go-round, music, people in love, happy faces. And somewhere in the background the tragedy of burning ghetto takes place. It is obvious from the first look that pictures - althrough they are distant in time and space are very similar. Nobody pays attention to innocent people's deaths, becouse, human tragedies (in the past and now), including also the greatest of them - death - are unfamiliar to life.

What is the message of this text? For sure - it uncovers the myth of talking past in suffering merry crowd is not even interested in the tragedy, it is indifferent. The lyrical subject, however, emphasizes the „loneliness of the dying" - it is the most severe accusation of „mankind".

The loneliness of Giordano Bruno was not about the fact that he had to die but that:

„There were no words

in any human tongue

to be left far mankind

mankind who live on".

„And he already distauced

As if centuries had passed".

This distance is the gulf of experience. Bruno is not able to say „Goodbye" to living people becouse they are not able to accept different opinions, they are not tolerant.

Ages passed since the death of Bruno but people are still not grown up enough to the idea of tolerance. The Jews die becouse the world still lacks freedom. They die lonely. The cause of their loneliness is not only insensibility of these living , but also the fact that:

„Our tongue becomes far them

the language of an ancient planet"

This statement has a lot of meanings, in the literary meaning it will be Hebrew, that is why the source of the loneliness of ghetto martyps is their national strangeness. The other metaphorical meaning suggests comporizon: „Like the language of an ancient planet". Here it is not about the national language, but about the one in which the Bible was ceated. The truths it includes sounds very strange in today's world. So it would be a kind of strangeness resulting from the loss of basic Biblical truths and it is the source of both: the indifference of crowd and the loneliness of dying.

The poem ends with the element of hope and rescuing: it is the announcement of rebelion againist crime against humanity. Poetry is the moral streugth able to face evil. Also from the volume „Rescue" comes the poem „A song on the end of the world".

A SONG ON THE END OF THE WORLD (Rescue)

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.

Warsaw, 1944


translated by Anthony Miloat

„A song..." may be understood differently becouse it touches different contexts. The text refers to visious of St.John the Divine and it interprets their metaphysical sense. Besides the motifs of extermination and catastrophy appeared many times in poet's early texts.

„A Song..." can be treated then as a continuation and negation of catastrophism. The poem written during the war and it can be also analyzed in this context. It may be noticed that this seemingly simple text is „a factory of culture senses" (J.Błonski).