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I just picked up Jonah's book, Proust was a Neuroscientist, which so far has me thinking differently about the other things I read. And with Whitman as the first chapter, I got to thumbing through some poetry. Plus, it's a nice season for poetry.
Moving on, inelegant as this transition may be....
We've posted a poem by the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborksa before ("Discover"). Here is another, called "A Note." I liked it.
Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;
to tell pain
from everything it's not;
to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes;
An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held with the lamp switched off;
and if only once
to stumble on a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,
mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important
(translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanaugh)
_________________
(If you're asking, I'll admit I'm a big fan of this part: "An extraordinary chance / to remember for a moment / a conversation held with the lamp switched off".)
Humanities & Social Science
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