FOTO-FILM, A. Cechnowski, ŁÓDŹ, Passage 24, tel. 457-23

There's still a Jew with a woolly beard, under a kalpak
artfully tied with ribbon, someone's playing a donkey
in a fur coat — the remnant of a Sunday-best from Riga,
there's a Priest, alive and kicking, although he is standing
against the blackboard; the Magi, as through all the centuries
of primary school plays: a gilded piece of cardboard and sceptres
made of lathe-turned chair legs. Next to the Boy Shepherds
in their embroidered jerkins, one with his hat tilted
down at a rakish angle over his nine-year-old
eye. There's a mountain of whiteness, golden thread and plumage:
little round faces in a general fluff of angel purity,
headbands emitting sunbeams from shining, precisely
brushed and combed tresses — the higher up the picture,
the more Stars, with their pointed heads close to the ceiling
(a bit part in the Nativity Play — even the comet —
is something that can mark you for the rest of your life).
Only the girl in the headdress, with the plastic baby,
gazes further and deeper, more intensely, strangely
over the hooded camera, over the children's tutor;
it's nineteen-thirty-seven. The line-up is lacking
the Devil and Death. They're crossing the frozen lakes.

Warsaw, 2.IX.2005