Wislawa Syzmborska: Bad with large numbers

I believe in the refusal to take part
I believe in the ruined career.

I believe in the wasted years of work.

I believe in the secret taken to the grave.

These words soar for me beyond all rules

without seeking support from actual examples.

My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.

Wislawa Szymborska

Tonight I am reading Wislawa Syzmborska. 

Winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature, Syzmborska was not well known outside of Poland, but she is a magnificent poet.

Earlier posts on Wislawa Syzmborska are here

A Large Number

Wislawa Syzmborska

Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak

Four billion people on this earth,
but my imagination is the way it's always been:
bad with large numbers.
It is still moved by particularity.
It flits about the darkness like a flashlight beam,
disclosing only random faces,
while the rest go blindly by,
unthought of, unpitied.
Not even a Dante could have stopped that.
So what do you do when you're not,
even with all the muses on your side?

Non omnis moriar—a premature worry.
Yet am I fully alive, and is that enough?
It never has been, and even less so now.
I select by rejecting, for there's no other way,
but what I reject, is more numerous,
more dense, more intrusive than ever.
At the cost of untold losses—a poem, a sigh.
I reply with a whisper to a thunderous calling.
How much I am silent about I can't say.
A mouse at the foot of mother mountain.
Life lasts as long as a few lines of claws in the sand.

My dreams—even they are not as populous as they should be.
There is more solitude in them than crowds or clamor.
Sometimes someone long dead will drop by for a bit.
A single hand turns a knob.
Annexes of echo overgrow the empty house.
I run from the threshold down into the quiet
valley seemingly no one's—an anachronism by now.

Where does all this space still in me come from—
that I don't know.

Could Have

by Wislawa Syzmborska

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck -- there was a forest.
You were in luck -- there were no trees.
You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . .

So you're here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or
speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

Wislawa Syzmborkska: One of the truly great European poets

Children of the Epoch by Wislawa Szymborska
(translated from the Polish by Austin Flint)

We are the children of the epoch.
The epoch is political.

All my daily and nightly affairs,
all your daily and nightly affairs,
are political affairs.

Whether you want it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin has a political hue,
and your eyes a political aspect.
What you say resounds,
what you don't say is also
politically significant.

Even coming through the rye,
you walk with political steps
on political ground.

Apolitical poems are also political,
and in the sky there's a moon
that's no longer moonlike.

To be or not to be, that is a question.
Oh darling, what a question, give a suggestion.
A political question.

You don't have to be human
to acquire a political meaning.
It's enough to be petroleum,
cattle fodder, raw material,
or just a conference table whose shape
was disputed for months.

In the meantime, people were killed.
Animals died,
houses burned,
fields grew wild,
as in distant
and less political epochs.

Wislawa Syzmborska: The Astonishment of Daily Life

May delivery be easy,
may our child grow and be well.
Let him be happy from time to time
and leap over abysses.

Let his heart have strength to endure
and his mind be awake and reach far.
But not so far
that it sees into the future.

Spare him
that one gift,
O heavenly powers
 Wislawa Syzmborska

I have had enough of elections. Today is for reading Syzmborska and appreciating what she calls the "astonishment of everyday life".

Some People
by Wislawa Syzmborska

Some people flee some other people.
In some country under a sun
and some clouds.

They abandon something like all they’ve got,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now preens.

Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles.
The emptier they get, the heavier they grow.

What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from exhaustion.
What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped away,
someone tries to shake a limp child back to life.

Always another wrong road ahead of them,
always another wrong bridge
across another oddly reddish river.
Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away,
above them a plane sort of circles.

Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or, better yet, some nonexistence
for a shorter or a longer while.

Something else will happen, only where and what.
Someone will come at them, only when and who,
in how many shapes, with what intentions.
If he has a choice,
maybe he won’t be the enemy
and will let them live some sort of life.

(Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanag)

Some people fleeing some other people. In some country under the sun and some clouds. They leave behind some of their everything, sown fields, some chickens, dogs, mirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected. On their backs are pitchers and bundles, the emptier, the heavier from one day to the next. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20449?utm_source=Anything+Can+Happen+by+Seamus+Heaney&utm_campaign=poemaday_090513&utm_medium=email#sthash.xugsvU29.dpuf

Some people fleeing some other people. In some country under the sun and some clouds. They leave behind some of their everything, sown fields, some chickens, dogs, mirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected. On their backs are pitchers and bundles, the emptier, the heavier from one day to the next. Taking place stealthily is somebody's stopping, and in the commotion, somebody's bread somebody's snatching and a dead child somebody's shaking. In front of them some still not the right way, nor the bridge that should be over a river strangely rosy. Around them, some gunfire, at times closer, at times farther off, and, above, a plane circling somewhat. Some invisibility would come in handy, some grayish stoniness, or even better, non-being for a little or a long while. Something else is yet to happen, only where and what? Someone will head toward them, only when and who, in how many shapes and with what intentions? Given a choice, maybe he will choose not to be the enemy and leave them with some kind of life. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20449?utm_source=Anything+Can+Happen+by+Seamus+Heaney&utm_campaign=poemaday_090513&utm_medium=email#sthash.xugsvU29.dpuf

Wislawa Szymborska and the truths that exist in everyday events

"Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners - and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know." "That little phrase 'I don't know' is small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended"

Wislawa Szymborska

A Few Words on the Soul
We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.

It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.

We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.

 

 Wislawa Szymborska 
from Collected Poems 
 

Mid week poem: Wistawa Szymborska

Children of Our Age
Wislawa Szymborska

We are children of our age,
it's a political age.

All day long, all through the night,
all affairs--yours, ours, theirs--
are political affairs.

Whether you like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin, a political cast,
your eyes, a political slant.

Whatever you say reverberates,
whatever you don't say speaks for itself.
So either way you're talking politics.

Even when you take to the woods,
you're taking political steps
on political grounds.

Apolitical poems are also political,
and above us shines a moon
no longer purely lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
And though it troubles the digestion
it's a question, as always, of politics.

To acquire a political meaning
you don't even have to be human.
Raw material will do,
or protein feed, or crude oil,

or a conference table whose shape
was quarreled over for months;
Should we arbitrate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile, people perished,
animals died,
houses burned,
and the fields ran wild
just as in times immemorial
and less political. 

Wislawa Szymborska and the profundity of Polish poetry

I believe in the refusal to take part
I believe in the ruined career.
I believe in the wasted years of work.
I believe in the secret taken to the grave.

These words soar for me beyond all rules
without seeking support from actual examples.
My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.

Wislawa Szymborska

The recent passing of Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012) has sent me back to her poetry. And how grateful I am. Szymborska who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature is not well known outside Poland. She should be.

Children of our Era
Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Joanna Trzeciak

We are children of our era;
our era is political.

All affairs, day and night,
yours, ours, theirs,
are political affairs.

Like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political cast,
your eyes a political aspect.

What you say has a resonance;
what you are silent about is telling.
Either way, it's political.

Even when you head for the hills
you're taking political steps
on political ground.

Even apolitical poems are political,
and above us shines the moon,
by now no longer lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Question? What question? Dear, here's a suggestion:
a political question.

You don't even have to be a human being
to gain political significance.
Crude oil will do,
or concentrated feed, or any raw material.

Or even a conference table whose shape
was disputed for months:
should we negotiate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile people were dying,
animals perishing,
houses burning,
and fields growing wild,
just as in times most remote
and less political.

Obituaries for Szymborska are here and here.