a poem by wislawa szymborska / translated from the polish by clare cavanagh (the new york review of books)

     a  p o e m 
     by wislawa szymoborska

    TRANSLATED FROM THE POLISH BY CLARE CAVANAGH

                                                                                                
 
     WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA 
       (1923- 2012/  Nobel Prize in Literarure.(1996)


   Nothingness unseamed itself for me too 
     It turned itself wrong side out. 
     How on earth did I end up here
     heat to toe among the planets, 
     Without a clue how I used not to be. 

     O you, encountered here and loved here
     I can only guess, my arm on yours,
     how much vacancy on that side went to make us.
     how much silence there for me love cricket here.                                           
     how much nonmeadow for a single sprig of sorrel.                                          
     and sun after darkness in a drop of dew 
     As repayment -- for what boundles droughts? 

     Starry willy-milly !  Local in reserve! 
     Stretched out in curvartures, weights
                                         roughnesses, and motions! 
     Time out from infinity for end less sky! 
     Relief from nonspace in a shivering
                                                    birch tree' s shape!

     Now or never wind will stir a cloud!
     Since wind is exactly what won' t blow there.
     And a beetle hits the trail in a witness' s
                                                                  dark suit.
     testyfying to the long wait for a short life .

     And it so happened had I' m here with you
     And I really see nothing usual in that. 

              WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
            
             ( The New York Review of Book )