by Wisława Szymborska
Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak
It’s good you came—she says.
You heard a plane crashed on Thursday?
Well so they came to see me
about it.
The story is he was on the passenger list.
So what, he might have changed his mind.
They gave me some pills so I wouldn’t fall apart.
Then they showed me I don’t know who.
All black, burned except one hand.
A scrap of shirt, a watch, a wedding ring.
I got furious, that can’t be him.
He wouldn’t do that to me, look like that.
The stores are bursting with those shirts.
The watch is just a regular old watch.
And our names on that ring,
they’re only the most ordinary names.
It’s good you came. Sit here beside me.
He really was supposed to get back Thursday.
But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.
I’ll put the kettle on for tea.
I’ll wash my hair, then what,
try to wake up from all this.
It’s good you came, since it was cold there,
and him just in some rubber sleeping bag,
him, I mean, you know, that unlucky man.
I’ll put the Thursday on, wash the tea,
since our names are completely ordinary—
You do us a great service to find works of art written in other languages we may not have access to otherwise. Thank you!
This is so deep.
This writing was so unexpected. Her loss is too overwhelming. She can’t comprehend it, nor can she escape from it.
An awesome poem that touches the whole of one’s being! Thanks for sharing! Also my sister I have nominated you for a new Award, the Most Influential Blog Award 2012. I have posted at my site, foreverpoetic.me. You have tirelessly shared so many wonderful things with us this past year influencing our world in a very great way, and that makes you so very deserving my sister, my friend! Thanks for making our mornings,afternoons and evenings a true blessing with your words and your spirit’s life-light! Congratulations and God bless always!