Poems New and Collected
Wislawa SzymborskaThe Silence of Plants
Our one-sided acquaintance
grows quite nicely.
I know what a leaf, petal, ear, cone, stalk is,
what April and December do to you.
Although my curiosity is not reciprocal,
I specially stoop over some of you,
Among the Multitudes
I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.
I could have different
ancestors, after all,
I could have fluttered
from another nest
I’d have to be really quick
to describe clouds—
a split second’s enough
for them to start being something else.
[…]
Unburdened by memory of any kind,
they float easily over the facts.
Out of a hundred people
[…]
harmless singly,
savage in crowds
—half at least,
cruel
when forced by circumstances
—better not to know
even ballpark figures,
wise after the fact
—just a couple more
than wise before it,
The Three Oddest Words
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.
Each of us wished to have a homeland
free of neighbors
and to live his entire life
in the intervals between wars.