<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Self Portrait</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 23px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">half my day passes. One day it will be half a century.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I live in strange cities and sometimes talk</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">with strangers about matters strange to me.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I listen to music a lot: Bach, Mahler, Chopin, Shostakovich.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I see three elements in music: weakness, power, and pain.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">The fourth has no name.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I read poets, living and dead, who teach me</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">tenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">the great philosophers--but usually catch just</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">scraps of their precious thoughts.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I like to take long walks on Paris streets</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">and watch my fellow creatures, quickened by envy,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">anger, desire; to trace a silver coin</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">passing from hand to hand as it slowly</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">loses its round shape (the emperor's profile is erased).</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Beside me trees expressing nothing</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">but a green, indifferent perfection.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Black birds pace the fields,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">waiting patiently like Spanish widows.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I'm no longer young, but someone else is always older.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">and fast bike rides on country roads when poplars and houses</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">dissolve like cumuli on sunny days.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Sometimes in museums the paintings speak to me</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">and irony suddenly vanishes.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I love gazing at my wife's face.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Every Sunday I call my father.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Every other week I meet with friends,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">thus proving my fidelity.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">My country freed itself from one evil. I wish</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">another liberation would follow. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Could I help in this? I don't know.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">I'm truly not a child of the ocean,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">as Antonio Machado wrote about himself,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">but a child of air, mint and cello</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">and not all the ways of the high world</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">cross paths with the life that--so far--</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">belongs to me.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>- Adam Zagajewski</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">June 21, 1945 - </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">March 21, 2021)</span></div></div></div></body></html>