Whoever wants me to love him - Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska

Whoever wants me to love him must never look gloomy, understand,

and he must be able to lift me up high in the palm of his hand.

Whoever wants me to love him must know how to sit on a bench for hours

and contemplate the little worms and leaves of grass and flowers. 

And he must know how to yawn when the funeral plods by in the street

and the crowds in the procession piously shuffle and bleat.

Instead when, say, a cuckoo calls he must know how to be moved,

or when a woodpecker pecks fiercely at a silver beech in the wood.

He must know how to stroke a dog and to give me a caress

and how to laugh and live in his dreams, deep, sweet and meaningless,

and stay quiet in the blissful darkness and know nothing, just like me,

and as for goodness and badness, stray from them equally.

---

Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska (1891 - 1945) Poland

Translated by Barbara Bogoczek and Tony Howard

Source: Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska website