Quote:
Hi Branka,

So sorry to hear of Wislawa Szymborska' s passing. There is no more hatred where she is, isn't that a wonderful thought.

Her poem on Hatred is super

Yes Myrna, she has left the reality of hatred. But the closed book of life does not always mean a lack of presence.

Her next poem also could be written by me.

A "Thank You" Note

There is much I owe

to those I do not love.

The relief in accepting

they are closer to another.

Joy that I am not

the wolf to their sheep.

My peace be with them

for with them I am free,

and this, love can neither give,

nor know how to take.

I don't wait for them

from window to door.

Almost as patient

as a sun dial,

I understand

what love does not understand.

I forgive

what love would never have forgiven.

Between rendezvous and letter

no eternity passes,

only a few days or weeks.

My trips with them always turn out well.

Concerts are heard.

Cathedrals are toured.

Landscapes are distinct.

And when seven rivers and mountains

come between us,

they are rivers and mountains

well known from any map.

It is thanks to them

that I live in three dimensions,

in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space,

with a shifting, thus real, horizon.

They don't even know

how much they carry in their empty hands.

"I don't owe them anything",

love would have said

on this open topic.

Dear Myrna, thanks for stopping by. Love you,

Branka

Thanks Branka for starting this thread.

Yes Wislawa Szymborska knew how to use polish language in poetry. Her poetry was mandatory reading in our schools during my years in Poland.

She left lots of good work behind her to follow for younger generations.

Bogdan

Quote:
Thanks Branka for starting this thread.

Yes Wislawa Szymborska knew how to use polish language in poetry. Her poetry was mandatory reading in our schools during my years in Poland.

She left lots of good work behind her to follow for younger generations.

Bogdan

Lucky you for reading her poetry in polish Bogdan!
Poetry is that natural conserve, in which one language preserves without any additives which could enhance it's taste and flavor.

I do not think that nowadays people are lovers of poetry. And HOW MUCH POETRY COULD CHANGE already existing picture about anything!!! It could be found in next poem:

Lot's Wife

They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind.
Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop.
I felt age within me. Distance.
The futility of wandering. Torpor.
I looked back setting my bundle down.
I looked back not knowing where to set my foot.
Serpents appeared on my path,
spiders, field mice, baby vultures.
They were neither good nor evil now--every living thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.
I looked back in desolation.
In shame because we had stolen away.
Wanting to cry out, to go home.
Or only when a sudden gust of wind
unbound my hair and lifted up my robe.
It seemed to me that they were watching from the walls of Sodom
and bursting into thunderous laughter again and again.
I looked back in anger.
To savor their terrible fate.
I looked back for all the reasons given above.
I looked back involuntarily.
It was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at me.
It was a sudden crack that stopped me in my tracks.
A hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge.
It was then we both glanced back.
No, no. I ran on,
I crept, I flew upward
until darkness fell from the heavens
and with it scorching gravel and dead birds.
I couldn't breathe and spun around and around.
Anyone who saw me must have thought I was dancing.
It's not inconceivable that my eyes were open.
It's possible I fell facing the city.


After reading this poem first time, I was crying for hours.
All what I have ever read, loved and believed, seems needed this poem as a crown for one new, much different approach to reality.

Of course that I painfully miss "proper" English words to let the content of the pictures and emotions, which this poem and Wislawa Szymborska's poetry in general, "produces" in me.

Bogdan, thanks for stopping by.

Some Like Poetry


Some -
thus not all. Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting schools, where one has to,
and the poets themselves,
there might be two people per thousand.

Like -
but one also likes chicken soup with noodles,
one likes compliments and the color blue,
one likes an old scarf,
one likes having the upper hand,
one likes stroking a dog.

Poetry -
but what is poetry.
Many shaky answers
have been given to this question.
But I don't know and don't know and hold on to it
like to a sustaining railing.


Translated by Regina Grol