Mirona Białoszewskiego "czekanie w powietrzu"
Streszczenie
The aim ol' the article is to draw attention to an important, though frequently left out,
aspect of Miron Białoszewskim works, namely their spiritual quality.
The expression duch (the spirit), dech - tchu (the spirit o f breath) and oddech - oddychać
(a breath - breathe) frequently or, at least, sporadically appear in the works by the Warsaw
poet. After checking the contexts of those words, it turned out that they could be associated
with the term spirit found in the Old Testament. A more detailed analysis consists of the
following components: 1) the gale, which “lata nad mostami / nad wodami z odnogami
(“ blows / over bridges / waters with arms”), like in the first words of the Book oj Genesis,
2) breath - being the essence of existence, 3) the spirit of a man - God’s breath; Białoszewski
is faithful to Hebraic tradition, which using the word basar, does not differentiate between
the body and the soul but considers them a whole (Christian tradition, by contrast, does not
know this sort of unity); 4) the spirits in a man.
In Miron Bialoszewski’s works air is often the centre of space vibrations, the breath of
the universe. Besides, the poet himself stands on the borderland between this and that worlds.
The fact that the author of Obroty rzeczy (The Motions o f Things) refers to the revelations
of Erich von Däniken in this context may be considered a joke or an attempt to mislead
the reader.