clouds

I’d have to be really quick

to describe clouds -

a split second’s enough

for them to start being something else.

Their trademark:

they don’t repeat a single 

shape, shade, pose, arrangement.

Unburdened by memory of any kind, 

they float easily over the facts.

What on earth could they bear witness to? 

They scatter whenever something happens.

Compared to clouds, 

life rests on solid ground, 

practically permanent, almost eternal.

Next to clouds

even a stone seems like a brother, 

someone you can trust, 

while they’re just distant, flighty cousins.

Let people exist if they want,

and then die, one after another:

clouds simply don't care

what they're up to

down there.

And so their haughty fleet

cruises smoothly over your whole life

and mine, still incomplete.

They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone.

They don't have to be seen while sailing on. 

–Wisława Szymborska
from Monologue of a Dog

Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh translation