Monday, June 29, 2020

so much of Everything








Reality demands
we also state the following:
life goes on.
At Cannae and Borodino.
at Kosovo Polje and in Guernica.

There is a gas station 
in a small plaza in Jericho,
and freshly painted
benches near Bila Hora.
Letters travel
between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,
a furniture truck passes
before the eyes of the lion of Chaeronea,
and only an atmospheric front advances
toward the blossoming orchards near Verdun.

There is so much of Everything,
that Nothing is quite well concealed,
Music flows
from yachts at Actium
and on board couples dance in the sun.

So much keeps happening, 
that it must be happening everywhere.
Where not a stone is left standing,
there is an ice-cream truck
besieged by children.

Where Hiroshima had been,
Hiroshima is again
manufacturing products
for everyday use.

Not without its draws is this terrible world,
not without its draws
worth our waking.

In the fields of Maciejowice
the grass is green
and on the grass is - you know how grass is -
transparent dew,

Maybe there are no fields but battlefields,
those still remembered,
and those long forgotten,
birch groves and cedar groves,
snows and sands, iridescent swamps,
and ravines of dark defeat
where today, in sudden need,
you squat behind a bush.

What moral flows from this? Probably none.
But what really flows is quickly drying blood,
and as always, some rivers and clouds.

On the tragic mountain passes
the wind blows hats off heads
and we cannot help-
but laugh.




~ Wislawa Szymborska
from miracle fair
translated by Joanna Trzeciak



 

1 comments:

Mystic Meandering said...

Indeed - LIFE does go on... Thank you...