10.14.08
For myself and those dear to me
By Wislawa Szymborska (1996 Nobel Laureate)
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For my Soprano Twinnie: Coloratura
Poised beneath a twig-wigged tree,
she spills her sparkling vocal powder:
slippery sound slivers, silvery
like spider’s spittle, only louder.
Oh yes, she Cares (with a high C)
for Fellow Humans (you and me);
for us she’ll twitter nothing bitter;
she’ll knit her fitter, sweeter glitter;
her vocal chords mince words for us
and crumble croutons, with crisp crunch
(lunch for her little lambs to munch)
into a cream-filled demitasse.
But hark! It’s dark! Oh doom too soon!
She’s threatened by the black bassoon!
It’s hoarse and coarse, it’s grim and gruff,
it calls her dainty voice’s bluff -
Basso Profondo, end this terror,
do-re-mi mene tekel et cetera!
You want to silence her, abduct her
to our chilly life behind the scenes?
To our Siberian steppes of stopped-up sinuses,
frogs in all throats, eternal hems and haws,
where we, poor souls, gape soundlessly
like fish? And this is what you wish?
Oh nay! Oh nay! Though doom be nigh,
she’ll keep her chin and pitch up high!
Her fate is hanging by a hair
of voice so thin it sounds like air,
but that’s enough for her to take
a breath and soar, without a break,
chandelierward; and while she’s there,
her vox humana crystal-clears
the whole world up. And we’re all ears.
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For my Constant Consonant Gardener: The Joy of Writing
(for you know this joy)
Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word “woods.”
Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they’ll never let her get away.
Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.
They forget that what’s here isn’t life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop.
Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?
The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.
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For my… Hope: Golden Anniversary
They have been different once,
fire and water, miles apart,
robbing and giving in desire,
that assault on one another’s otherness.
Embracing, they appropriated and expropriated each other for so long,
that only air was left within their arms,
transparent as if after lightning.
One day the answer came before the question.
Another night they guessed their eyes’ expression
by the type of silence in the dark.
Gender fades, mysteries molder,
distinctions meet in all-resemblance
just as all colors coincide in white.
Which of them is doubled and which missing?
Which one is smiling with two smiles?
Whose voice forms a two-part canon?
When both heads nod, which one agrees?
Whose gesture lifts the teaspoon to their lips?
Who’s flayed the other one alive?
Which one lives and which has died
entangled in the lines of whose palm?
They gazed into each other’s eyes and slowly twins emerged.
Familiarity breeds the most perfect of mothers –
it favors neither of the little darlings,
it scarcely can recall which one is which.
On this festive day, their golden anniversary,
a dove, seen identically, perched on the windowsill.
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For my Bestfriend Shmuckie: Openness
(”Reactionary” people, don’t take this maliciously.
I’m just providing him some inspiration. ;-))
Here we are, naked lovers,
beautiful to each other—and that’s enough.
The leaves of our eyelids our only covers,
we’re lying amidst deep night.
But they know about us, they know,
the four corners, and the chairs nearby us.
Discerning shadows also know,
and even the table keeps quiet.
Our teacups know full well
why the tea is getting cold.
And old Swift can surely tell
that his book’s been put on hold.
Even the birds are in the know:
I saw them writing in the sky
brazenly and openly
the very name I call you by.
The trees? Could you explain to me
their unrelenting whispering?
The wind may know, you say to me,
but how is just a mystery.
A moth surprised us through the blinds,
its wings in fuzzy flutter.
Its silent path—see how it winds
in a stubborn holding pattern.
Maybe it sees where our eyes fail
with an insect’s inborn sharpness.
I never sensed, nor could you tell
that our hearts were aglow in the darkness.
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For my Familiar Raindrop: Nothing Twice
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, 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.
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For Myself: Miracle Fair
The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.
The usual miracles:
invisible dogs barking
in the dead of night.
One of many miracles:
a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.
Several miracles in one:
an alder is reflected in the water
and is reversed from left to right
and grows from crown to root
and never hits bottom
though the water isn’t deep.
A run-of-the-mill miracle:
winds mild to moderate
turning gusty in storms.
A miracle in the first place:
cows will be cows.
Next but not least:
just this cherry orchard
from just this cherry pit.
A miracle minus top hat and tails:
fluttering white doves.
A miracle (what else can you call it):
the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.
and will set tonight at one past eight.
A miracle that’s lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it’s go more than four.
A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.
An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.
