Szymborska poems....
NOTHING TWICE
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequences, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.
One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you're here with me
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
THEATRE IMPRESSIONS
For me the tragedy's most important act is the sixth:
the raising of the dead form the stage's battlegrounds,
the straightening of wigs and fancy gowns,
removing knives form stricken breasts,
taking nooses from lifeless necks,
lining up among th eliving
to face the audience
The bows, both solo and ensemble--
the pale hand on the wounded heart,
the curtsies of the hapless suicide,
the bobbing of the chopped-off head
The bows in pairs--
rage extends its arm to meekness,
the victim's eyes smile at the torturer,
the rebel indulgently walks beside the tyrant
Eternity trampled by the golden slipper's toe.
Redeeming values swept aside with the swish of a
wide-brimmed hat
The unrepentant urge to start all over tomorrow.
Now enter, single file, the hosts who died early one,
in Acts 3 and 4, or between scenes.
The miraculous return of all those lost without a trace.
The though that they've been waiting patiently offstage
without taking off their makeup
or their costumes
moves me more than all the tragedy's tirades.
But the curtain's fall is the most uplifting part,
the things you see before it hits the floor:
here one hand quickly reaches for a flower,
there another hand pics up a fallen sword.
Only then, one last, unseen, hand
does its duty
and grabs me by the throat
TRUE LOVE
True love. Is it normal,
is it serious , is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?
Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions, but convinced
it had to happen this way--in reward for what? For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.
Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake!
Listen to them laughing--its an insult.
The language they use--deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines--
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!
It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? what renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?
True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.
Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN
She must be a variety.
Change so that nothing will change.
it's easy, impossible, tough going, worth a shot.
Her eyes are required, deep blue, gray,
dark, merry, full of pointless tears.
She sleeps with him as if she's first in line or the only one on
earth
She'll bear him four children, no children, one.
Naive, but gives the best advice.
Weak, but takes on anything.
A screw loose and tough as nails.
Curls up with Jaspers or Ladies' Home Journal.
Can't figure out this bolt and builds a bridge.
Young, young as ever, still looking young.
Holds in her hands a baby sparrow with a broken wing,
her own money for some trip far away,
a meat cleaver, a compress, a glass of vodka.
Where's she running, isn't she exhausted.
Not a bit, a little, to death, it doesn't matter.
She must love him, or she's just plain stubborn.
For better, for worse, for heaven's sake.
