THE SOLOMON`S SEMINARY

1. THE CHRISTENING

I have a photograph from Rypin
The Godparents and I in a baby`s sleeping bag
The vicar Jan Gutowski christened me
I looked up it in the Metrics

Mum told not much
They say she was ill
Didn`t be on the christening in the church
Didn`t hold the short clothes

I also didn`t be healthy, too
Father told me
That I was violet
When he took me out for a walk

That right now in a panic
Drove me in a pram to the Cross
That there he prayed whole-heartedly
Fear that I could die

For this reason the parents
How both admitted
For I could not die, in the care
Of the God – your child – gave

2. THE PENANCE

From Faustyna as an inheritance
The love to the confession
To tell about this is difficult
Unquestionably is do it

When I worked in Russia
Didn`t have next door to
The Catholic priest`s
Could to confess often

So I asked the Bishop
In the hardly situation
Could I go to confessed
To Orthodox priest

He was a little surprised
Warned “Could be spies”
When I obstinately asked
Agreed eventually

It was difficult about takers
In the end I had them four
The Orthodox priests
As the “spiritual fathers”

3. THE EUCHARIST

At my the First Communion
I recited a poem
But all I mixed up
The checks smarted very

People forgave me
Probably laughed
Next in the agronomist home
The Godparents handed in the presents

I got a gold watch
Seventeen stones
The jacket of green
The beret to set

This beret appealed me
I didn`t take off it in the church
Someone commented it
I pocketed

The all month to the midnight
I prayed from the booklet
I didn`t doubt that the God
Is in the room

4. THE CONFIRMATION

The Bishop Wosiński from Płock
The first hierarch of the missions
In the usual day confirmed us
The church was almost empty

The Father Majkowski asked
To help him on the Holidays
To recondition the bell-tower
To carry a water cement sand

A classmate raised hand
I didn`t decide on that
I liked to read the books
Then I didn`t raise hand

The Parish Priest didn`t harbor disappointment
The matter commented:
“You don`t help to priest
The God also don`t help you”

Curiously as it happened
Who raised your hand`
Is the Parish Priest in a cathedral`
I read and write the poems

5. THE PRIESTHOOD

The five years after my ordination
When I was in the Caucasus
Celebrated with the sisters nuns
I visited the sick

On the tenth anniversary
The waterfall on Sachalin
Looked at this place
Where the young boy died

In the fifteenth in Donieck
I was seriously ill
I didn`t celebrate the Eucharist
Nobody gave me the Holy Communion

On the twentieth anniversary
A big bunch of flowers brought me
On the Mass in English and Russian
In the great Uzbek city

On the silver jubilee
In the Papuan village
Was the Bishop and the Governor
I had caught a malaria`

6. THE MARRIAGE

I joined the very many thousand couples
In the different strange situations:
In Russian on the fork road
On Kamczatka on the cemetery

Once in the Gallery in Rostów
This couple in age sixty odd
German Lucja Hoffman
Husband Russian Czernow

Czernow was nice to wife
Though he was a skeptic
Confessed that like lightning
The fire lighted inside

The alcoholic from Kalmucja
German Wiederholler
Was drunk on and on before a marriage
Sobered when got a ring

In Donbas a big miracle
Greek and Pole Regina
The doctor had to cut a cancer
The wedding was before an operation

7. ANOINTING OF THE SICK

I anointed with the oil
The ten-year-old child
In the same day was christened
Paralysis twisted your hand

I wanted to find a doctor
I had to direct to city
But when after the month
I met her – she was healthy

I met in my parish
The old man close to the death
I anointed him body
I felt: “Jesus` presence”

One woman sick of eyes
Was blind completely
I poured on your face the oils
Because my hands very trembled

Someone had elephantiasis
The nose and face very swollen
Again my palms swelled
Spilled mass of oil