I don't know how people can
write poems about the moon
Zbigniew Herbert
so teensy: this spying-moon, dwarfish
midnight mole; a pearlsplatter,
sun-feuding, shrewd and crudely lit

a world away; a marble of ice-gneiss, you stravaiged
glaring over the whole sky-wheel - a sloppy orphaned
popper on the starched collar of bald night

sand-drift? little horse blaze? didn't David
fling you up there with his sling - O heaven's
braid - and steal Orion's fame?

i've measured out the night-lace, made myself
a stole from it; with your halo
brooch, i bunched up the stuff of the whole universe -

och, how envious are the moths … and
that wannabe Goliath, on whose heid you chalkillied
a saunterstar, has twice nothing your power

Translated by Pàdraig MacAoidh
VERSschmuggel 2014, Poesiefestival Berlin

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another translation, made by Joshua Daniel Edwin
i don't understand how people
can write poems about the moon…
zbigniew herbert
pink pipsqueak: moonspy, dwarf
mark of midnight—fizzdapple, a sun-
disputing tricky dick, faintly lit and

distant. a clicker, ice-stone, you stray glossy
over the huge arc; loose eyelet, orphaned
on the starched collar of stark night

—drift-sand? blaze? didn't david work you,
with his sling, high into the heavens'
braid, and steal orion's fame?

i portioned out the nightcrêpe, made
myself a shift of it; with the brooch,
your halo, gathering the universe's fabric—

how the gamma-owls will envy… and
the broke goliath whose brow you chalk,
lodestar, now has twice no clout

translated by Pàdraig MacAoidh