"This is how we grow, we move through time and love.
We do not trust God, people lie to us.
Another year, another life, and what will remain,
when we stand at the gate of light?"
(K. K. Baczyński)
All Souls’ Day is a time for reflection, a time to remember those who have passed away. We search for them in the depths of our memory and devote to them moments taken from our haste, from our everyday lives. We lay flowers at their feet, light candles and remain in prayerful silence. For a brief while, we are with them.
On 31 October 1996, at the Primary School in Kraśnik Dolny, eighth-grade students allowed everyone to experience an extraordinary encounter with Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński. For the musical and poetry evening, we invited the Principal, the teaching staff, Małgorzata Zawada, librarian at the Municipal Library in Kraśnik Dolny, as well as sixth- and seventh-grade students.
The eighth-graders, dressed in black, welcomed everyone into a hall illuminated only by candle flames. The guests sat at tables covered with white tablecloths, on which bouquets of dried flowers stood. And then, together with the eighth grade, we entered a world of reflection on life and death. The students recited poems, while delicate music could be heard in the background. Works performed by our students alternated with classical music played from records. The warmth of the candles, the voices of the reciters, and the sounds of the piano and violin carried us into a world that was almost unreal. Kamil Baczyński was with us, speaking through his poems, and at that moment became very close to us. And that was precisely the point, because the essence of the gathering was to awaken sensitivity to the beauty of poetic language, to higher values such as reverence and love, and to duty toward the Homeland. The performance was a tribute to K. K. Baczyński and to those who fought and fell alongside him in the streets of Warsaw. May it become, at the same time, a symbolic candle that will continue to burn in our hearts for a long time.
M.A. Krystyna Myszkun
-Polish teacher at the Primary School
in Kraśnik Dolny