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Wislawa Szymborska
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THANK-YOU NOTE
  
I owe so much 
to those I don't love. 
The relief as I agree 
that someone else needs them more. 

The happiness that I'm not 
the wolf to their sheep. 

The peace I feel with them, 
the freedom--- 
love can neither give 
nor take that. 

I don't wait for them, 
as in window-to-door-and-back. 
Almost as patient 
as a sundial, 
I understand 
what love can't 
and forgive 
as love never would. 

From a rendezvous to a letter 
is just a few days or weeks, 
not an eternity. 

Trips with them always go smoothly, 
concerts are heard, 
cathedrals visited, 
scenery is seen. 

And when seven hills and rivers 
come between us, 
the hills and rivers 
can be found on any map. 

They deserve the credit 
if I live in three dimensions, 
in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space 
with a genuine, shifting horizon. 

They themselves don't realize 
how much they hold in their empty hands. 

"I don't owe them a thing," 
would be love's answer 
to this open question. 
 


SKY 
  
I should have begun with this; the sky. 
A window minus sill, frame, and panes. 
An aperture, nothing more, 
but wide open. 

I don't have to wait for a starry night, 
I don't have to crane my neck 
to get a look at it. 
I've got the sky behind my back, at hand, and on my eyelids. 
the sky binds me tight 
and sweeps me off my feet. 

Even the highest mountains 
are no closer to the sky 
than the deepest valleys. 
There's no more of it in one place 
than another. 
A mole is no less in seventh heaven 
than the owl spreading her wings. 
The object that falls in an abyss 
falls from sky to sky. 

Grainy, gritty, liquid, 
inflamed, or volatile 
patches of sky, specks of sky, 
gusts and heaps of sky. 
The sky is everywhere, 
even in the dark beneath your skin. 
I eat the sky, I excrete the sky. 
I'm a trap within a trap, 
an inhabited inhabitant, 
and embrace embraced, 
a question answering a question. 

Division into sky and earth--- 
it's not the proper way 
to contemplate this  wholeness. 
It simply lets me go on living 
at a more exact address 
where I can be reached promptly 
if I'm sought. 
My identifying features 
are rapture and despair. 



LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT 
  
They're both convinced 
that a sudden passion joined them. 
Such certainty is beautiful, 
but uncertainty is more beautiful still. 

Since they'd never met before, they're sure 
that there'd been nothing between them. 
But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways--- 
perhaps they've passed by each other a million times? 

I want to ask them 
if they don't remember--- 
a moment face to face 
in some revolving door? 
perhaps a "sorry" muttered in a crowd? 
a cut "wrong number" caught in the receiver? 
but I know the answer. 
No, they don't remember. 

They'd be amazed to hear 
that Chance has been toying with them 
now for years. 

Not quite ready yet 
to become their Destiny, 
it pushed them close, drove them apart, 
it barred their path, 
stifling a laugh, 
and then leaped aside. 

There were signs and signals, 
even if they couldn't read them yet. 
Perhaps three years ago 
or just last Tuesday 
a certain leaf fluttered 
from one shoulder to another? 
Something was dropped and them picked up. 
Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished 
into childhood's thicket? 

There were doorknobs and doorbells 
where one touch had covered another 
beforehand. 
Suitcases checked and standing side by side. 
One night, perhaps, the same dream, 
grown hazy by morning. 

Every beginning 
is only a sequel, after all, 
and the book of events 
is always open halfway through.



MIRACLE FAIR 
  
The commonplace miracle: 
that so many common miracles take place. 

The usual miracles: 
invisible dogs barking 
in the dead of night. 

One of many miracles: 
a small and airy cloud 
is able to upstage the massive moon. 

Several miracles in one: 
an alder is reflected in the water 
and is reversed from left to right 
and grows from crown to root 
and never hits bottom 
though the water isn't deep. 

A run-of-the-mill miracle: 
winds mild to moderate 
turning gusty in storms. 

A miracle in the first place: 
cows will be cows. 

Next but not least: 
just this cherry orchard 
from just this cherry pit. 

A miracle minus top hat and tails: 
fluttering white doves. 

A miracle (what else can you call it): 
the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m. 
and will set tonight at one past eight. 

A miracle that's lost on us: 
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers 
but still it's go more than four. 

A miracle, just take a look around: 
the inescapable earth. 

An extra miracle, extra and ordinary: 
the unthinkable 
can be thought. 
  


MAY 16, 1973 
  
One of those many dates 
that no longer ring a bell. 

Where I was going that day, 
what I was doing --- I don't know. 

Whom I met, what we talked about, 
I can't recall. 

If a crime had been committed nearby, 
I wouldn't have had an alibi. 

The sun flared and died 
beyond my horizons. 
The earth rotated 
unnoted in my notebooks. 

I'd rather think 
that I'd temporarily died 
than that I kept on living 
and can't remember a thing. 

I wasn't a ghost, after all. 
I breathed, I ate, 
I walked. 

My steps were audible, 
my fingers surely left 
their prints on doorknobs. 

Mirrors caught my reflection. 
I wore something or other in such-and-such a color. 
Somebody must have seen me. 

Maybe I found something that day 
that had been lost. 
Maybe I lost something that turned up late. 

I was filled with feelings and sensations. 
Now all that's like 
a line of dots in parentheses. 

Where was I hiding out, 
where did I bury myself? 
Not a bad trick 
to vanish before my own eyes. 

I shake my memory. 
Maybe something in its brances 
that has been asleep for years 
will start up with a flutter. 
No. 
Clearly I'm asking too much. 
Nothing less than one whole second. 
  


NOTHING TWICE 
  
Nothing can ever happen twice. 
In consequence, the sorry fact is 
that we arrive here improvised 
and leave without the chance to practice. 

Even if there is no one dumber, 
if you're the planet's biggest dunce, 
you can't repeat the class in summer: 
this course is only offered once. 

No day copies yesterday, 
no two nights will teach what bliss is 
in precisely the same way, 
with exactly the same kisses. 

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue 
mentions your name by accident: 
I feel as if a rose were flung 
into the room, all hue and scent. 

The next day, though you're here with me, 
I can't help looking at the clock: 
A rose? A rose? What could that be? 
Is it a flower or a rock? 

Why do we treat the fleeting day 
with so much needless fear and sorrow? 
It's in its nature not to stay: 
Today is always gone tomorrow. 

With smiles and kisses, we prefer 
to seek accord beneath our star, 
although we're different (we concur) 
just as two drops of water are. 
  


OUR ANCESTOR'S SHORT LIVES 
  
Few of them made it to thirty. 
Old age was the privilege of rocks and trees. 
Childhood ended as fast as wolf cubs grow. 
One had to hurry, to get on with life 
before the sun went down, 
before the first snow. 

Thirteen-year-olds bearing children, 
four-year-olds stalking birds' nests in the rushes, 
leading the hunt at twenty--- 
they aren't yet, then they are gone. 
Infinity's ends fused quickly. 
Witches chewed charms 
with all the teeth of youth intact. 
A son grew to manhood beneath his father's eye. 
Beneath the grandfather's blank sockets the grandson was born. 

And anyway they didn't count the years. 
They counted nets, pods, sheds, and axes. 
Time, so generous toward any petty star in the sky, 
offered them a nearly empty hand 
and quickly took it back, as if the effort were too much. 
One step more, two steps more 
along the glittering river 
that sprang from darkness and vanished into darkness. 
There wasn't a moment to lose, 
no deferred questions, no belated revelations, 
just those experienced in time. 
Wisdom couldn't wait for gray hair. 
It had to see clearly before it saw the light 
and to hear every voice before it sounded. 

Good and evil--- 
they knew little of them, but knew all: 
when evil triumphs, good goes into hiding; 
when good is manifest, then evil lies low. 
Neither can be conquered 
or cast off beyond return. 
Hence, if joy, then with a touch of fear; 
if despair, then not without some quiet hope. 
Life, however long, will always be short. 
Too short for anything to be added. 



MUSEUM 
  
Here are plates but no appetite. 
And wedding rings, but the requited love 
has been gone now for some three hundred years. 

Here's a fan ---where is the maiden's blush? 
Here are swords---where is the ire? 
Nor will the lute sound at the twilight hour. 

Since eternity was out of stock, 
ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead. 
The moss-grown guard in golden slumber 
props his mustache on Exhibit Number ... 

Eight. Metals, clay and feathers celebrate 
their silent triumphs over dates. 
Only some Egyptian flapper's silly hairpin giggles. 

The crown has outlasted the head. 
The hand has lost out to the glove. 
The right shoe has defeated the foot. 

As for me, I am still alive, you see. 
The battle with my dress still rages on. 
It struggles, foolish thing, so stubbornly! 
Determined to keep living when I'm gone! 
  


IN PRAISE OF MY SISTER 
  
My sister doesn't write poems, 
and it's unlikely that she'll suddenly start writing poems. 
She takes after her mother, who didn't write poems, 
and also her father, who likewise didn't write poems. 
I feel safe beneath my sister's roof: 
my sister's husband would rather die than write poems. 
And, even though this is starting to sound as repetitive as Peter Piper, 
the truth is, none of my relatives write poems. 

My sister's desk drawers don't hold old poems, 
and her handbag doesn't hold new ones. 
When my sister asks me over for lunch, 
I know she doesn't want to read me her poems. 
Her soups are delicious without ulterior motives. 
Her coffee doesn't spill on manuscripts. 

There are many families in which nobody writes poems, 
but once it starts up it's hard to quarantine. 
Sometimes poetry cascades down through the generations 
creating fatal whirlpools where family love may founder. 

My sister has tackled oral prose with some success, 
but her entire written opus consists of postcards from vacation 
whose text is only the same promise every year: 
when she gets back, she'll have 
so much 
much 
much to tell. 



THE SUICIDE'S ROOM 
  
I'll bet you think the room was empty. 
Wrong. There were three chairs with sturdy backs. 
A lamp, good for fighting the dark. 
A desk, and on the desk a wallet, some newspapers. 
A carefree Buddha and a worried Christ. 
Seven lucky elephants, a notebook in a drawer. 
You think our addresses weren't in it? 

No books, no pictures, no records, you guess? 
Wrong. A comforting trumpet poised in black hands. 
Saskia and her cordial little flower. 
Joy the spark of gods. 
Odysseus stretched on the shelf in life-giving sleep 
after the labors of Book Five. 
The moralists 
with the golden syllables of their names 
inscribed on finely tanned spines. 
Next to them, the politicians braced their backs. 

No way out? But what about the door? 
No prospects? The window had other views. 
His glasses 
lay on the windowsill. 
And one fly buzzed---that is, was still alive. 

You think at least the note tell us something. 
But what if I say there was no note--- 
and he had so many friends, but all of us fit neatly 
inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup.

  

UNDER ONE SMALL STAR 
  
My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. 
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all. 
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. 
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. 
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. 
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. 
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. 
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. 
I apologize for my record of minutes to those who cry from the depths. 
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations 
     for being asleep today at five a.m. 
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. 
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you  
     bearing a spoonful of water. 
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, 
     always in the same cage, 
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, 
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. 
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs. 
My apologies to great questions for small answers. 
Truth, please don't pay me much attention. 
Dignity, please be magnanimous. 
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, 
     as I pluck the occasional thread from your train. 
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then. 
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once. 
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man. 
I know I won't be justified as long as I live, 
since I myself stand in my own way. 
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, 
then labor heavily so that they may seem light. 
  


CAT IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT 
  
Die --- you can't do that to a cat. 
Since what can a cat do 
in an empty apartment? 
Climb the walls? 
Rub up against the furniture? 
Nothing seems different here, 
but nothing is the same. 
Nothing has been moved, 
but there's more space. 
And at nighttime no lamps are lit. 

Footsteps on the staircase, 
but they're new ones. 
The hand that puts fish on the saucer 
has changed, too. 

Something doesn't start 
at its usual time. 
Something doesn't happen 
as it should. 
Someone was always, always here, 
then suddenly disappeared 
and stubbornly stays disappeared. 

Every closet has been examined. 
Every shelf has been explored. 
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing. 
A commandment was even broken, 
papers scattered everywhere. 
What remains to be done. 
Just sleep and wait. 

Just wait till he turns up, 
just let him show his face. 
Will he ever get a lesson 
on what not to do to a cat. 
Sidle toward him 
as if unwilling 
and ever so slow 
on visibly offended paws, 
and no leaps or squeals at least to start. 
  


THE PEOPLE ON THE BRIDGE  

An odd planet, and those on it are odd, too. 
They're subject to time, but they won't admit it. 
They have their own ways of expressing protest. 
They make up little pictures, like for instance this: 

At first glance, nothing special. 
What you see is water. 
And one of its banks. 
And a little boat sailing strenuously upstream. 
And a bridge over the water, and people on the bridge. 
It appears that the people are picking up their pace 
because of the rain just beginning to lash down 
from a dark cloud. 

The thing is, nothing else happens. 
The cloud doesn't change its color or its shape. 
The rain doesn't increase or subside. 
The boat sails on without moving. 
The people on the bridge are running now 
exactly where they ran before. 

It's difficult at this point to keep from commenting. 
This picture is by no means innocent. 
Time has been stopped here. 
Its laws are no longer consulted. 
It has been relieved of its influence over the course of events. 
It has been ignored and insulted. 

On account of a rebel, 
one Hiroshige Utagawa 
(a being who, by the way, 
died long ago and in due course), 
time has tripped and fallen down. 

It might well be simply a trifling prank, 
an antic on the scale of just a couple of galaxies, 
let us, however, just in case, 
add one final comment for the record: 

For generations, it's been considered good form here 
to think highly of this picture, 
to be entranced and moved. 

There are those for whom even this is not enough. 
They go so far as to hear the rain's spatter, 
to feel the cold drops on their necks and backs, 
they look at the bridge and the people on it 
as if they saw themselves there, 
running the same never-to-be-finished race 
through the same endless, ever-to-be-covered distance, 
and they have the nerve to believe 
that this is really so. 
  


THE THREE ODDEST WORDS 
  
When I pronounce the word Future, 
the first syllable already belongs to the past. 

When I pronounce the word Silence, 
I destroy it. 

When I pronounce the word Nothing, 
I make something no non-being can hold. 



POSSIBILITIES 
  
I prefer movies. 
I prefer cats. 
I prefer the oaks 
I prefer Dickens 
I prefer myself liking people 
to myself loving mankind. 
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. 
I prefer the color green. 
I prefer not to maintain 
that reason is to blame for everything. 
I prefer exceptions. 
I prefer to leave early. 
I prefer talking to doctors about something else. 
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations. 
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems 
to the absurdity of not writing poems. 
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific 
that can be celebrated every day. 
I prefer moralists 
who promise me nothing. 
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind. 
I prefer the earth in civvies. 
I prefer conquered to conquering countries. 
I prefer having some reservations. 
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order. 
I prefer Grimm's fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages. 
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves. 
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails. 
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark. 
I prefer desk drawers. 
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here 
to many things I've also left unsaid. 
I prefer zeroes on the loose 
to those lined up behind a cipher. 

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars. 
I prefer to knock on wood. 
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when. 
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility 
that existence has its own reason for being. 
  


PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN 
  
She must be willing to please. 
To change so that nothing should change. 
It's easy, impossible, hard, worth trying. 
Her eyes are if need be now deep blue, now gray, 
dark, playful, filled for no reason with tears. 
She sleeps with him like some chance acquaintance, like his one and only. 
She will bear him four children, no children, one. 
Naive yet giving the best advice. 
Weak yet lifting the weightiest burdens. 
Has no head on her shoulders but will have. 
Reads Jaspers and ladies' magazines. 
Doesn't know what this screw is for and will build a bridge. 
Young, as usual young, as always still young. 
Holds in her hands a sparrow with a broken wing, 
her own money for a journey long and distant, 
a meat-cleaver, poultice, and a shot of vodka. 
Where is she running so, isn't she tired? 
Not at all, just a bit, very much, doesn't matter. 
Either she loves him or has made up her mind to. 
For better, for worse, and for heaven's sake.