Inside-Out Views

Jerzy Ficowski, translated by Jennifer Grotz & Piotr Sommer

The pink bellies of stones feed wetness to the ground. The underside of
eagles, owls and sparrows, the embarrassing buttock of moon—this is my
upturned monarchy: 
the inside-out views visible to a dog’s nose.

There’s where you release your dog—who throws himself into the water
and fetches, bringing you back the hunted horizon in his mouth. There
peace and the right to exist are ensured by mimicries and simulations. The
most an inhabitant of greenery can permit himself is a red liver.

What pretends to be death dresses in a rigid inertia. What pretends to be
nothingness sinks into the background. What pretends to be predation—
hawkly claws. There—underneath, inside-outly—shelters what’s left of
colors. They’re being overgrown by a cataract that muffles their presence.
Only from time to time does wind scatter the fur of the common and
reveal for a single gust a dazzling protozoa of colors.

May they be praised, the gray-winged guardian angels of Mimicry. They
carry under each of their feathers a speck of the truthful rainbow.