I Would Like to Describe || Zbigniew Herbert

I would like to describe the simplest emotion
joy or sadness
but not as others do
reaching for shafts of rain or sun

I would like to describe a light
which is being born in me
but I know it does not resemble
any star
for it is not so bright
not so pure
and is uncertain

I would like to describe courage
without dragging behind me a dusty lion
and also anxiety
without shaking a glass full of water

to put it another way
I would give all metaphors
in return for one word
drawn out of my breast like a rib
for one word
contained within the boundaries
of my skin

but apparently this is not possible

and just to say—I love
I run around like mad
picking up handfuls of birds
and my tenderness
which after all is not made of water
asks the water for a face

and anger
different from fire
borrows from it
a loquacious tongue

so is blurred
so is blurred
in me
what white-haired gentlemen
separated once and for all
and said
this is the subject
and this is the object

we fall asleep
with one hand under our head
and with the other in a mound of planets

our feet abandon us
and taste the earth
with their tiny roots
which next morning
we tear out painfully

--

This is how some of the serious poets feel like. They take is as their obligation to create different experiences and feelings for an emotion. They're trying to create different tokens for the phenomenal states that we experience by using the tool of the world.

But like I said, maybe just some, since there are also great poets who are zen with their phenomenal states and just let their feelings fill the page.

to put it another way
I would give all metaphors
in return for one word
drawn out of my breast like a rib
for one word
contained within the boundaries
of my skin

just to make the poem be, all sacrifices become necessary. We experience love at it's human sense yet we deliberately fall out of it. We recognize the ugly photos of our mind, the disgusting nature of our being, we admit it and turn it into something beautiful, something terrifying, but it is all still an emotion. And like a rib, it's importance is life threatening.

we fall asleep
with one hand under our head
and with the other in a mound of planets

our feet abandon us
and taste the earth
with their tiny roots
which next morning
we tear out painfully

easily we understand it's beauty and it's just so libertating. The WORLD.