What František from Maková hora Told Me

I would never want to be a poet;

I can imagine the torment.

A poet must say great things in small words.

It eats away the soul, it hurts far more

than you think.

He must visit the temples of the sick,

the lazarettos of darkness,

into the leper colonies,

and perhaps beyond the river Ganges send medicine

at his own expense.

He must walk on foot to the knights of Blaník,

tend to their horses,

love the hay and the aftermath,

when drought comes to harvest.

He must have a nose

for injustice,

hands so long

that he can frisk airplanes,

a heart burning and thirsting,

and he must not ask

whether to rattle the bars

brings hands covered in blood

or death itself.

That is not all.

A field of landmines awaits them,

plains of envy,

and if ten commandments are not enough,

he must invent more.

An eleventh poem,

damp and dependent,

combing out its hair

and stepping into the river,

in whose pools swim pike

the size of the moon.

Then he tosses his head:

I would never want to be a poet.

Yet secretly I would wish

that they would take me in,

those boys, talkative beyond despair,

for a little while, to mercy.