The Majesty of Sleep

Abstract

The Majesty of Sleep* Adam Zagajewski (bio) Translated by Clare Cavanagh Sleep like the veranda of a country house spreads before you a forest and shadows and the interior of memories. Sleep is the mind free of constraint, the proud capital of poetry and plays, sleep is a thought not yet embodied, fed meagerly by jealous waking. Sleep is Assyria, severe and valiant. Sleep is Tuscany seen at dawn, when slim trees sip ink from the black earth—and a city, which breathes through long cigarettes of sorrow. Sleep visits hospitals and prisons, comforts the afflicted like a pure-hearted nun; sleep wanes, exhausted; it dies lightly, like Norwid, without grief or heirs. —translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh Adam Zagajewski Adam Zagajewski, a native of Poland, is the author of a number of books of poetry, some of which have been translated into English—Mysticism for Beginners, Tremor, Canvas, Without End: New and Selected Poems (2002), and Eternal Enemies: Poems (2008). He is also author of Solitude and Solidarity, Two Cities: On Exile History and the Imagination, and Another Beauty—all prose, the later being a memoir. Before joining the faculty of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he taught in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. Footnotes * “The Majesty of Sleep” first appeared in AGNI Volume 54 (2001). Copyright © 2001 Adam Zagajewski. [End Page 7] Copyright © 2009 Charles H. Rowell