Tyniec

A Benedictine abbey, the S of a river
Feathered by willows. The rural life
Placed on a platter, barns,
A church spire, cottages.

A farmer drives his cattle
Over water-meadows, geese on a playing-field like footballers
In 4 – 2 – 4 formation.

An atmosphere of grunt and mud,
A liquid greenness.

Mist rises; even now it’s not fanciful
To imagine it, laced with cyanide,
Leaking from Oswiecim.

Bypassing Lublin

The name printed on a sign: Isaac Bashevis
Singer country. Beards
Fashioned out of smoke, cloaks bellying over boots.
The streets reek prayer, persecution.

In Plac Litweski they play chess
Under ignored monuments: Unknown Soldier,
Union of Lublin, 3rd of May Constitution (1791).

Factory chimneys like embedded freighters,
The baroque and the industrial,
Watch-towers and crematoria.
They float now reminders of Majdanek,
Suburb ringed with barbed-wire.

In sudden gusts hands cling to hats
As if levitating. A cobbled,
Oil-lit city, the wind from the Ukraine.

Send Letters To:

The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN

letters@lrb.co.uk

Please include name, address, and a telephone number.

Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.

Sign up to our newsletter

For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.

Newsletter Preferences