Philosopher's Stone

we need to put
this poem to sleep

before it starts
philosophizing
before it starts

fishing
for compliments

called to life
in a moment of forgetting

sensitive to words
glances
it looks to
a philosopher’s
stone for help
o passerby hasten your step
do not lift up the stone

there a blank verse
naked
turns
to ashes

Tadeusz Różewicz