A Polish Poem

Hues

***

Here is purple - a tree's shadow walking the gravel path,

the purple linking the red and sapphire in love. - 

There - the pinkish bark and the joyous green of birches,

and in the flitting dress of the green - the skies blue circles.

But within me the white, white, white dwells monotonously - 

because in me I carry the hues focused mystery. -

Within the white of my whiteness oh how I suffer so - 

I want to be a hue - who will smash me into rainbow?

***

Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, 1922, 

Translated by Marek Lugowski