Kings and Spirits in The Eastern European Tales [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 183-206]

KINGS AND SPIRITS
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elements of this verse. The human presence can only be inferred by "signs
in the wind," "drawings in the snow," and almost immediately, "Letters
and crosses on pedestals are patiently gnawed at by the empty salt air."
["Autumn in Copenhagen" from "Seven Poems by Tomas Venclova,"
Cross Currents 5 (1986)] In the midst of a great silence in the world,
nature performs its levelling work: "Is it possible/To distinguish between
your truth and ashes/And the thrush's silvery sophistries?/... since the
same blind force/swoops down and strikes you, a frail lyre." ["Choc z
studni...," (Though from a Well...), in the cycle "From the Baltic
Verse," Zeszyty Literackie 1987, no. 18]
Venclova's inclination towards European mythology, as well as the
post-glacial world of his poetry, might with time form the geological basis
for a conservative utopia. The cosmic elements of nature, however, are
matched by a cosmic moral sense ready to bisect the globe; the same sense
that drove Sisyphus to lift the stone and Simone Weil, that friend of the
weak, to always flee the victor's camp.
The moral aura of Venclova's poetry, slightly tinged by Camus, sometimes takes up a different note, which also avoids the temptations of conservatism. There appears a very hesitant affirmation of life and its unexpectedly irresistible strength-an Odyssean curiosity about the vagaries
of fate. This is far removed from ecstasy and bright, sensuous tones. It
is rather a bitter acquiescence, conceding a point to the opponent; the
admission that life is stronger than pledges of loyalty: "Chestnut trees,
the bright streets will do the trick for you... you'll get tired." ["Seven
Poems"] Life's instincts and the plain voice of common sense advance
new truths: "The Lord's landslide, lowering/over forfeited space. While
the dismal expanse/is crumbled by the heart's monotonous strokes/let
thanks be offered, thanks for a new land." ["Seven Poems"]
History, change, every new form of life puts Zagajewski into a joyous
anxiety, the vigilant ear of the poet catches the staccato beat of the
flamenco: he wants to be where Carmen is dancing. His delight is ecstatic,
but it is an ecstasy augmented by the challenge of form. This passion is
never satisfied, but it is the very staff of life and history, and forms the
atmosphere of art, "Quiescent desires" ["Trzy g'osy," (Three Voices),
Zeszyty Literackie 1985, no. 11] murmur within-anticipation and hunger
for shape, constraint, measure and discipline: passion transmuted into
dance, energy conjured into music.
Milosz's Wilno is Masonic, secular, a university city of anti-nationalist
organizations and intelligentsia conspiracies. The most vital thing in it
was the spiritual legacy of the Enlightenment. The city's intellectual elite
"was contemptuous of the 'old liners,' of the whole complex: Polish
nationalism"-thus Milosz's description of a Wilno upbringing. ["A Dialogue
About Wilno"] But we are not merely concerned with anti-nationalist idiosyncracy. This is also a temperament-"the will to reality" of Gombrowicz's