Emily shares with me a fondness for poetry and in particular, the 1996 Nobel Laureate, Wislawa Szymborska. I’ve had a few of Szymborska’s poems up before, but not this fine one, which Emily sent me last week.
On Death, without Exaggeration
It can’t take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.
In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.
It can’t even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.
Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.
Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!
Sometimes it isn’t strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.
All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.
Ill will won’t help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d’etat
is so far not enough.
Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies’ skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.
Whoever claims that it’s omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it’s not.
There’s no life
that couldn’t be immortal
if only for a moment.
Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.
In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you’ve come
can’t be undone.
Many indeed are the caterpillars that have outcrawled it. I love that line.
Good one. Thanks.
I mostly just lurk here…and enjoy the conversation I observe. I wanted to thank you for posting this poem. Tomorrow my mother has been dead for four years. This fact has been at the edge of my mind all day while I tried to ignore it. The line “As far as you’ve come can’t be undone.”…for me this comfort is the essence of art.
I love that poem! I sort of have a terror of death (not the dying, the not existing.) That poem makes us seem triumphant, not sadly, inevitably waiting to be picked off. I love it.