Zbigniew Herbert - REPORT FROM HEAVEN

In heaven the work week is 30 hours long

The wages are higher, prices always go down

The physical work doesn't make you feel tired (because the gravitational force is not so strong)

Chopping wood is just like typewriting

The social order is stable and the government wise

Really the life in heaven is better than in any other country.

In the beginning it was supposed to be different -

The circles of light, choirs and degrees of abstraction.

However, the separation of the soul from the body

Was not entirely successful and she was arriving here

With a drop of fat attached, or a thread of muscle.

Conclusions had to be drawn

A grain of the absolute was mixed with a grain of clay.

One more deviation from the doctrine; it will be the last.

Only John foresaw this – you'll be resurrected in a body.

Only a few see God.

He is only for those of pure pneuma.

The rest listens to official messages about miracles and floods.

In time all will see God,

Although nobody knows when this is going to happen.

So far on Saturday at noon

The sirens sound sweetly

And the heavenly proletariat leave their factories

Clumsily carrying their wings under their arm, like violins.

Translated by W.F.

Zbigniew Herbert (pron. Zbeegnyef Herbert) (1924-1998)

An economist by education, for some time he worked in a bank. Later he studied philosophy. Fascinated by the Mediterranean civilisation, he wrote poetry full of allusions to the culture of antiquity. During the worst Stalinist terror he wrote poetry, but never published it, making his debut only after the worst years, in 1956. He is considered the most important poet of the so-called “Generation ‘56”.

Czeslaw Milosz translated his poems onto English and thus Herbert gained his international reputation, even before Milosz himself. For some time the two poets were very friendly, but after the end of the communist era Herbert in his writings viciously attacked everyone who has ever had any sympathy for the communist regime. That included Herbert’s erstwhile mentor, Czeslaw Milosz.

The best known poems of Herbert are philosophical deliberations of “Mr. Cogito”, but many critics agree that his best poems are the earlier ones, those reflecting on the themes of Mediterranean antiquity.