Crucifixion — Web Exclusive
By Krzysztof Koehler
Translated by Bill Johnston
The halberdier was more propping up
his side than piercing it, casually it seemed.
"A static scene. Though the hearts of mothers
will immediately comprehend the droop of Mary's head."
He spoke. Yet I was looking at John:
A little to the side, he was taller than the halberdier
by the tone of his eyes, the gesture of his hand.
"Let there be peace. He has already given
his soul to God." This may be where
Gnostics came from, if one of them dallied somewhat longer
in Biecz. The body does not suffer. The spirit is a different state.
Mary Magdalene was there too.
About her he said nothing She was like earth.
Christ was like time.
Krysztof Koehler was born 1963 and is a poet, literary critic, and essayist. One of the Polish New Wave poets, he is the author of four volumes of poems. He teaches at the Polish Language and Literature Institute of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, and also at the Ignatiatium School of Philosophy and Pedagogy in Krakow. He is the director of the Polish Television’s Culture Channel and a coauthor of several documentary films.
Bill Johnston is a prolific Polish language literary translator and associate professor of comparative literature at Indiana University. His work has helped to expose English-speaking readers to classic and contemporary Polish poetry and fiction. In 2008 he received the Found in Translation Award for his translation of new poems by Tadeusz Różewicz (this book was also a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Poetry Award). In 1999 he was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship for Poetry (Translation) for Balladina by Juliusz Słowacki, and in 2005 he received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for a translation of The Coming Spring by Stefan Żeromski. In 2005, his translation of Magdalena Tulli’s Dreams and Stones won the Translation Award of AATSEEL (American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages).