Quotes By Author: Wisława Szymborska

“A Hard Life With MemoryI’m a poor audience for my memory.She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,but I fidget, fuss,listen and don’t,step out, come back, then leave again.She wants all my time and attention.She’s got no problem when I sleep.The day’s a different matter, which upsets her.She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,stirs up events both important and un-,turns my eyes to overlooked views,peoples them with my dead.In her stories I’m always younger.Which is nice, but why always the same story.Every mirror holds different news for me.She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,weighty, but easily forgotten.Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction.Then comforts me, it could be worse.She wants me to live only for her and with her.Ideally in a dark, locked room,but my plans still feature today’s sun,clouds in progress, ongoing roads.At times I get fed up with her.I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.Then she smiles at me with pity,since she knows it would be the end of me too.”

“Some PeopleSome people flee some other people. In some country under a sun and some clouds. They abandon something close to all they’ve got, sown fields, some chickens, dogs, mirrors in which fire now preens. Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles. The emptier they get, the heavier they grow. What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from exhaustion. What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped away, someone tries to shake a limp child back to life. Always another wrong road ahead of them, always another wrong bridge across an oddly reddish river. Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away, above them a plane seems to circle.Some invisibility would come in handy, some grayish stoniness, or, better yet, some nonexistence for a shorter or a longer while. Something else will happen, only where and what. Someone will come at them, only when and who, in how many shapes, with what intentions. If he has a choice, maybe he won’t be the enemy and will leave them to some sort of life.”

“Four billion people on this earthbut my imagination is still the same.It’s bad with large numbers.It’s still taken by particularity.It flits in the dark like a flashlight,illuminating only random faceswhile all the rest go by,never coming to mind and never really missed.”