Author: Wisława Szymborska
Quotes of Author: Wisława Szymborska
AstonishmentWhy after all this one and not the rest?Why this specific self, not in a nest, But a house? Sewn up not in scales, but skin?Not topped off by a leaf, but by a face?Why on earth now, on Tuesday of all days,And why on earth, pinned down by this star's pin?In spite of years of my not being here?In spite of seas of all these dates and faces,These cells, celestials, and coelenterates?What is it really that made me appearNeither an inch nor half a globe too far Psalm How leaky are the borders of man-made states!How many clouds float over them scot-free,how much desert sand sifts from country to country,how many mountain pebbles roll onto foreign turfin provocative leaps! Need I cite each and every bird as it flies,or alights, as now, on the lowered gate?Even if be a sparrow-its tail is abroad,Though its beak is still home. As if that weren't enough-it keeps fidgeting! Out of countless insects I will single out the ant,who, between the guard's left and right boots,feels unobliged to answer questions of origin and destination. If only this whole mess could be seen at once in detailon every continent!Isn't that a privet on the opposite banksmuggling its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?Who else but the squid, brazenly long-armed,would violate the sacred territorial waters.? How can we speak of any semblance of orderwhen we can't rearrange the starsto know which one shines for whom? Not to mention the reprehensible spreading of fog!Or the dusting of the steppe over its entire rangeas though it weren't split in two!Or voices carried over accommodating air waves:summoning squeals and suggestive gurgles Poetry Reading To be a boxer, or not to be there at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds? Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare- it's time to start this cultural affair. Half came inside because it started raining, the rest are relatives. O Muse. The women here would love to rant and rave, but that's for boxing. Here they must behave. Dante's Inferno is ringside nowadays. Likewise his Paradise. O Muse. Oh, not to be a boxer but a poet, one sentenced to hard shelleying for life, for lack of muscles forced to show the world the sonnet that may make the high-school reading lists with luck. O Muse, O bobtailed angel, Pegasus. In the first row, a sweet old man's soft snore: he dreams his wife's alive again. What's more, she's making him that tart she used to bake. Aflame, but carefully-don't burn his cake!- we start to read. O Muse. book-quoteMusi być do wyboru,
Zmieniać się, żeby tylko nic się nie zmieniło.
To łatwe, niemożliwe, trudne, warte próby.
Oczy ma, jeśli trzeba, raz modre, raz szare,
Czarne, wesołe, bez powodu pełne łez
Śpi z nim jak pierwsza z brzegu, jedyna na świecie.
Urodzi mu czworo dzieci, żadnych dzieci, jedno.
Naiwna, ale najlepiej doradzi.
Słaba, ale udźwignie.
Nie ma głowy na karku, to będzie ją miała.
Czyta Jaspersa i pisma kobiece.
Nie wie po co ta śrubka i zbuduje most.
Młoda, jak zwykle młoda, ciągle jeszcze młoda.
Trzyma w rękach wróbelka ze złamanym skrzydłem,
własne pieniądze na podróż daleką i długą,
tasak do mięsa, kompres i kieliszek czystej.
Dokąd tak biegnie, czy nie jest zmęczona.
Ależ nie, tylko trochę, bardzo, nic nie szkodzi.
Albo go kocha albo się uparła.
Na dobre, na niedobre i na litość boską. book-quote