Wisława Szymborska Quotes

They were or they weren't. On an island or not. An ocean or not an ocean Swallowed them up or it didn't.

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.

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.

Woods disguised as woods alive without end, and above them birds in flight play birds in flight.

So what can they tell us, the writers of dream books,
the scholars of oneiric signs and omens,
the doctors with couches for analyses — if anything fits,
it’s accidental,
and for one reason only,
that in our dreamings,
in their shadowings and gleamings,
in their multiplings, inconceivablings,
in their haphazardings and widescatterings
at times even a clear-cut meaning
may slip through.

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

I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Whose side are you on?" "I don't know." "This is a war, you've got to choose." "I don't know." "Does your village still exist?" "I don't know." "Are those your children?" "Yes.

Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me how little now remains, one first person sing., temporarily declined in human form, just now making such a fuss about a blue umbrella left yesterday on a bus.

I don't reproach the spring
for starting up again.
I can't blame it
for doing what it must
year after year.

I know that my grief
will not stop the green.

Dimenticano che la vita non è qui.
Altre leggi, nero su bianco, vigono qui.
Un batter d’occhio durerà quanto dico io,
si lascerà dividere in piccole eternità
piene di pallottole fermate in volo.
Non una cosa avverrà qui se non voglio.
Senza il mio assenso non cadrà foglia,
né si piegherà stelo sotto il punto del piccolo zoccolo.

C’è dunque un mondo di cui reggo le sorti indipendenti?
Un tempo che lego con catene di segni?
Un esistere a mio comando incessante?
La gioia di scrivere.
Il potere di perpetuare.
La vendetta d’una mano mortale.

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.

We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences.

The Real World'

The real word doesn't take flight
the way dreams do.
No muffled voice, no doorbell
can dispel it,
no shriek, no crash
can cut it short.

Images in dreams
are hazy and ambiguous,
and can generally be explained
in many different ways.
Reality means reality:
that's tougher nut to crack.

Dreams have keys.
The real world opens on its own
and can't be shut.
Report canrds and stars
pour from it,
butterflies and flatiron warmers
shower down,
headless caps
and shards of clouds.
Together they form a rebus
that can't be solved.

Without us dreams couldn't exist.
The one on whom the real world depends
is still unknown,
and the products of his insomnia
are avaialble to anyone
who wakes up.

Dreams aren't crazy-
it's the real world that's insane,
if only in the stubbornness
with which it sticks
to the current of events.

In dreams our recently deceased
are still alive,
in perfect health, no less,
and restored to the full bloom of youth.
The real world lays the corpse
in front of us.
The real world doesn't blink an eye.

Dreams are featherweights,
and memory can shake them off with ease.
The real world doesn't have to fear forgetfulness.
It's a tough customer.
It sits on our shoulders,
weights on our hearts,
tumbles to our feet.

There's no escaping it,
it tags along each time we flee.
And there's no stop
along our escape route
where reality isn't expecting us.

I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.

I could have had different
ancestors, after all.
I could have fluttered
from another nest
or crawled bescaled
from under another tree.

Nature's wardrobe
holds a fair supply of costumes:
spider, seagull, field mouse.
Each fits perfectly right off
and is dutifully worn
into shreds.