Once, when I was still a student, I gave my mothera book about Brueghel (the father) for her name dayand after a week I took it back, claiming I wouldneed it for my “work” (she laughed at me).These days though modernity invadeseven cemeteries—not far from her gravethey’ve placed a candlemat, that’s right, a candlemat,a metal post, a machine dispensing candles,you just toss two or three obols in the slot.The name day for Ludwika came again, I went to that city,not a city now but a tropical forest of memoriesand my childhood spoke to me, every streetspoke, sang, maybe even shouted, yes,shouted, talking about what had been and whatno longer was, and also about those I used to know.I wasn’t sure how to pray for the deadin such tumult, in the shriek of recollection.I placed a pot of small chrysanthemums on the gravestoneand understood only going homethat this had been a prayer, this momentary hesitation.Then I also realized I hadn’t brought a penor pencil, I couldn’t write downwhat had happened, luckily I was savedby the gas station cashier, she made mea present of a used gold ballpoint penand an unused sheet of A4 paper.I quickly started scribbling and while I scrawledclumsy sentences my friends appeared out of nowhere,Charlie Williams and also Tomaž Šalamun—1 thought Tomaž would particularly likethe idea of the ballpoint at the gas station.I truthfully explained: “but that’s how it was, really,”and I heard an answer: “really,what does it mean really?” (they spoke together,laughing, although I know their aestheticshad radically differed in the past).And nothing had changed, nothing had changed;it was already dark when I got back to Kraków,the last days of August, but still quite warm,summer remembered its youth, even the nightwas warm and elastic, nothing had changed,armies of stalactites slowly grew in cavesand satellites stammered surveilling the earth,and nothing had changed, nothing.