We Know What Art Is

 by Adam Zagajewski

We know what art is, we recognize the sense of happiness

it gives, difficult at times, bitter, bittersweet,

sometimes only sweet, like Turkish pastry. We honor art,

since we'd like to know what our life is.

We live, but don't always know what that means.

So we travel, or just open a book at home.

We recall a momentary vision as we stood before a painting,

we may also remember clouds drifting through the sky. 

We shiver when we hear a cellist play

Bach's suites, when we catch a piano singing.

We know what great poetry can be, a poem

written three millennia ago, or yesterday.

But we don't know why a concert sometimes

fails to move us. We don't see why

some books seem to offer us redemption

while others can't conceal their rage. We know, but then we

     forget.

We can only guess why a work of art may suddenly

close up, slam shut, like an Italian museum on strike (sciopero). 

Why our souls also close at times, and slam shut, like

an Italian museum on strike (sciopero).

Why art goes mute when terrible things happen,

why we don't need it then—as if terrible things

had overwhelmed the world, filled it completely, totally, to

     the roof. 

We don't know what art is.