How Could I
--Ryszard Krynicki (trans. Clare Cavanagh) 

What are you doing, little snail, on my balcony,
so many floors above the ground?
Are you coming back from Fuji?
Oh, how could I 

not know you, Issa, at once?

Who Finds Comfort
--Ryszard Krynicki (trans. Clare Cavanagh) 

......................................................to flee with your soul on a leaf...
.........................................................-Adam Mickiewicz 

Who finds comfort
in a sentence made of metal?
I'd rather read on a little leaf
a poem by the snail Issa,
who once before, after centuries,
brought me urgent news 

from a free world.