Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska
I personally, really enjoy this poem of Szymborska’s particularly because it seems to describe almost every day of our lives. This poem depicts a date, a random date, and what she happened to do that date. Only, she does not remember what she did. Simply because we live day-to-day not documenting ev...
One of those many dates
that no longer ring a bell.
Where I was going that day,
what I was doing --- I don't know.
Whom I met, what we talked about,
I can't recall.
If a crime had been committed nearby,
I wouldn't have had an alibi.
The sun flared and died
beyond my horizons.
The earth rotated
unnoted in my notebooks.
I'd rather think
that I'd temporarily died
than that I kept on living
and can't remember a thing.
I wasn't a ghost, after all.
I breathed, I ate,
I walked.
My steps were audible,
my fingers surely left
their prints on doorknobs.
Mirrors caught my reflection.
I wore something or other in such-and-such a color.
Somebody must have seen me.
Maybe I found something that day
that had been lost.
Maybe I lost something that turned up later.
I was filled with feelings and sensations.
Now all that's like
a line of dots in parentheses.
Where was I hiding out,
where did I bury myself?
Not a bad trick
to vanish before my own eyes.
I shake my memory.
Maybe something in its branches
that has been asleep for years
will start up with a flutter.
No.
Clearly I'm asking too much.
Nothing less than one whole second.
May 16, 1973 was produced by Clare Cavanagh & Stanisław Barańczak.