Szymborska Quotes

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.

I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.

The Three Oddest Words When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.

Every beginning, after all, is nothing but a sequel, and the book of events is always open in the middle.

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still

When it comes, you’ll be dreaming that you don’t need to breathe; that breathless silence is the music of the dark and it’s part of the rhythm to vanish like a spark.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn’t possible to save mankind.

We know ourselves only as far as we’ve been tested.

It turns out I was right. But nothing has come of it.

True love. Is it normal is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

Dying - you can't do that to a cat.

Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring--this is one of the harshest human miseries.

Somewhere out there the world must have an end.

We live longer but less precisely and in shorter sentences.

No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.

No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning —three cheers for the ants.

A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell pain from everything it's not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes. An extraordinary chance to remember for a moment a conversation held with the lamp switched off; and if only once to stumble upon a stone, end up soaked in one downpour or another, mislay your keys in the grass; and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes; and to keep on not knowing something important.

I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

I am my own obstacle.

I don't reproach the spring for starting up again. I can't blame it for doing what it must year after year. I know that my grief will not stop the green.

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable loss.

Four billion people on this earth but 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 faces while all the rest go by, never coming to mind and never really missed.

My apologies to past loves for treating the latest as the first.

But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.

My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man. I know I won't be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

I’ll never find out now What A. thought of me. If B. ever forgave me in the end. Why C. pretended everything was fine. What part D. played in E.’s silence. What F. had been expecting, if anything. Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well. What H. had to hide. What I. wanted to add. If my being around meant anything to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

They're both convinced that a sudden passion joined them. Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still. Since they'd never met before, they're sure that there'd been nothing between them. But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways-- perhaps they've passed by each other a million times? I want to ask them if they don't remember-- a moment face to face in some revolving door? perhaps a "sorry" muttered in a crowd? a curt "wrong number" caught in the receiver? but I know the answer. No, they don't remember. They'd be amazed to hear that Chance has been toying with them now for years. Not quite ready yet to become their Destiny, it pushed them close, drove them apart, it barred their path, stifling a laugh, and then leaped aside. There were signs and signals, even if they couldn't read them yet. Perhaps three years ago or just last Tuesday a certain leaf fluttered from one shoulder to another? Something was dropped and then picked up. Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished into childhood's thicket? There were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. Suitcases checked and standing side by side. One night, perhaps, the same dream, grown hazy by morning. Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination…Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.

Nothing has changed. The body is susceptible to pain, It must eat and breath air and sleep, It has thin skin and blood right underneath, An adequate stock of teeth and nails, Its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable. In tortures all this is taken into account. Nothing has changed. The body shudders as it is shuddered Before the founding of Rome and after, In the twentieth century before and after Christ. Tortures are as they were, it’s just the earth that’s grown smaller, And whatever happens seems on the other side of the wall. Nothing has changed. It’s just that there are more people, Besides the old offenses, new ones have appeared, Real, imaginary, temporary, and none, But the howl with which the body responds to them, Was, and is, and ever will be a howl of innocence According to the time-honored scale and tonality. Nothing has changed. Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances, Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same. The body writhes, jerks, and tries to pull away Its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up, It turns blue, swells, salivates, and bleeds. Nothing has changed. Except of course for the course of boundaries, The lines of forests, coasts, deserts, and glaciers. Amid these landscapes traipses the soul, Disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away, Alien to itself, elusive At times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence, While the body is and is and is And has no place of its own.

Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don’t charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost.

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with. Scruples are alien to the black panther. Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions. The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations. The self-critical jackal does not exist. The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly live as they live and are glad of it. The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos but in other respects it is light. There is nothing more animal-like than a clear conscience on the third planet of the Sun.

Even if you bar my way, even if you stare me in the face, I'll pass you by on the chasm's edge, finer than a hair.

But any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.

Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."...That is why I value that little phrase "I don't know" so highly. It's small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include spaces within us as well as the outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended...Poets, if they're genuine, must always keep repeating "I don't know.

We have a soul at times. No one’s got it non-stop, for keeps. Day after day, year after year may pass without it. Sometimes it will settle for awhile only in childhood’s fears and raptures. Sometimes only in astonishment that we are old. It rarely lends a hand in uphill tasks, like moving furniture, or lifting luggage, or going miles in shoes that pinch. It usually steps out whenever meat needs chopping or forms have to be filled. For every thousand conversations it participates in one, if even that, since it prefers silence. Just when our body goes from ache to pain, it slips off-duty. It’s picky: it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds, our hustling for a dubious advantage and creaky machinations make it sick. Joy and sorrow aren’t two different feelings for it. It attends us only when the two are joined. We can count on it when we’re sure of nothing and curious about everything. Among the material objects it favors clocks with pendulums and mirrors, which keep on working even when no one is looking. It won’t say where it comes from or when it’s taking off again, though it’s clearly expecting such questions. We need it but apparently it needs us for some reason too.

You were saved because you were the first. You were saved because you were the last. Alone. With others. On the right. The left. Because it was raining. Because of the shade. Because the day was sunny.

Let me have your abyss.

How light the raindrop's contents are; how gently the world touches me. From View With a Grain of Sand

History rounds off skeletons to zero. A thousand and one is still only a thousand.

the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

Memories come to mind like excavated statues that have misplaced their heads.

in painted quiet and concentration

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other. I could have had different ancestors, after all. I could have fluttered from another nest or crawled bescaled from under another tree. Nature's wardrobe holds a fair supply of costumes: spider, seagull, field mouse. Each fits perfectly right off and is dutifully worn into shreds.

Possibilities I prefer movies. I prefer cats. I prefer the oaks along the Warta. I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. I prefer the color green. I prefer not to maintain that reason is to blame for everything. I prefer exceptions. I prefer to leave early. I prefer talking to doctors about something else. I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations. I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems. I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries that can be celebrated every day. I prefer moralists who promise me nothing. I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind. I prefer the earth in civvies. I prefer conquered to conquering countries. I prefer having some reservations. I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order. I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages. I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves. I prefer dogs with uncropped tails. I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark. I prefer desk drawers. I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here to many things I've also left unsaid. I prefer zeroes on the loose to those lined up behind a cipher. I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars. I prefer to knock on wood. I prefer not to ask how much longer and when. I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility that existence has its own reason for being.

But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it.

Cierta gente huyendo de otra gente. En cierto país bajo el sol y bajo ciertas nubes.

a stone / which in its own archaic, simpleminded way / sees life as a chain of failed attempts.

there were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. suitcases checked and standing side by side. one night, perhaps, the same dream grown hazy by morning. every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all. Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.

-A Word On Statistics- Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two. Unsure of every step: almost all the rest. Ready to help, if it doesn't take long: forty-nine. Always good, because they cannot be otherwise: fourwell, maybe five. Able to admire without envy: eighteen. Led to error by youth (which passes): sixty, plus or minus. Those not to be messed with: four-and-forty. Living in constant fear of someone or something: seventy-seven. Capable of happiness: twenty-some-odd at most. Harmless alone, turning savage in crowds: more than half, for sure. Cruel when forced by circumstances: it's better not to know, not even approximately. Wise in hindsight: not many more than wise in foresight. Getting nothing out of life except things: thirty (though I would like to be wrong). Balled up in pain and without a flashlight in the dark: eighty-three, sooner or later. Those who are just: quite a few, thirty-five. But if it takes effort to understand: three. Worthy of empathy: ninety-nine. Mortal: one hundred out of one hundred a figure that has never varied yet.

I've wanted to write about them for a long while, but it's a tricky subject, always put off for later and perhaps worthy of a better poet, even more stunned by the world than I. But time is short. I write.

The world, whatever we might think about it terrified by its vastness and by our helplessness in the face of it, embittered by its indifference to individual suffering—of people, animals, and perhaps also plants, for how can we be sure that plants are free of suffering; whatever we might think about its spaces pierced by the radiation of stars, stars around which we now have begun to discover planets, already dead? still dead?—we don’t know; whatever we might think about this immense theater, to which we may have a ticket, but it is valid for a ridiculously brief time, limited by two decisive dates; whatever else we might think about this world—it is amazing.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.   Even

History didn’t greet us with triumphal fanfares: —it flung dirty sand into our eyes. Ahead of us lay long roads leading nowhere, poisoned wells and bitter bread.

soy una persona anticuada que cree que leer libros es el pasatiempo más hermoso que la humanidad ha creado.

هیچ چیز دوبار اتفاق نمی افتد [ترجمه‌ی مارک اسموژنسکی، شهرام شیدایی، چوکا چکاد] هیچ چیز دوبار اتفاق نمی افتد و اتفاق نخواهد افتاد. به همین دلیل ناشی به دنیا آمده ایم و خام خواهیم رفت. حتا اگر کودن ترین شاگردِ مدرسه ی دنیا می بودیم هیچ زمستانی یا تابستانی را تکرار نمی کردیم هیچ روزی تکرار نمی شود دوشب شبیه ِ هم نیست دوبوسه یکی نیستند نگاه قبلی مثل نگاه بعدی نیست دیروز ، وقتی کسی در حضور من اسم تو را بلند گفت طوری شدم، که انگار گل رزی از پنجره ی باز به اتاق افتاده باشد. امروز که با همیم رو به دیوار کردم رز! رز چه شکلی است؟ آیا رز، گل است؟ شاید سنگ باشد ای ساعت بد هنگام چرا با ترس بی دلیل می آمیزی؟ هستی - پس باید سپری شوی سپری می شوی- زیبایی در همین است هر دو خندان ونیمه در آغوش هم می کوشیم بتوانیم آشتی کنیم هر چند باهم متفاوتیم مثل دو قطره ی آب زلال.

-NONREADING- Bookstores don't provide a remote control for Proust, you can't switch to a soccer match, or a quiz show, win a Cadillac. We live longer but less precisely and in shorter sentences. We travel faster, farther, more often, but bring back slides instead of memories. Here I am with some guy. There I guess that's my ex. Here everyone's naked so this must be a beach. Seven volumes—mercy. Couldn't it be cut or summarized, or better yet put into pictures. There was that series called "The Doll," but my sister-in-law says that's some other P.* And by the way, who was he anyway. They say he wrote in bed for years on end. Page after page at a snail's pace. But we're still going in fifth gear and, knock on wood, never better.

Woods disguised as woods alive without end, and above them birds in flight play birds in flight.

A che serve qui chiedersi sotto quante stelle nasce l'uomo, e sotto quante dopo un attimo muore.

Even a passing moment has its fertile past.

Po każdej wojnie ktoś musi posprzątać.

One more comment from the heart: I’m old fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. Homo Ludens dances, sings, produces meaningful gestures, strikes poses, dresses up, revels and performs elaborate rituals. I don’t wish to diminish the significance of these distractions-without them human life would pass in unimaginable monotony and possibly dispersion and defeat. But these are group activities above which drifts a more or less perceptible whiff of collective gymnastics. Homo Ludens with a book is free. At least as free as he’s capable of being. He himself makes up the rules of the game, which are subject only to his own curiosity. He’s permitted to read intelligent books, from which he will benefit, as well as stupid ones, from which he may also learn something. He can stop before finishing one book, if he wishes, while starting another at the end and working his way back to the beginning. He may laugh in the wrong places or stop short at words he’ll keep for a life time. And finally, he’s free-and no other hobby can promise this-to eavesdrop on Montaigne’s arguments or take a quick dip in the Mesozoic.

A Hard Life With Memory I’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.

Life While-You-Wait. Performance without rehearsal. Body without alterations. Head without premeditation. I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it. I have to guess on the spot just what this play’s all about. Ill-prepared for the privilege of living, I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands. I improvise, although I loathe improvisation. I trip at every step over my own ignorance. I can’t conceal my hayseed manners. My instincts are for happy histrionics. Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more. Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel. Words and impulses you can’t take back, stars you’ll never get counted, your character like a raincoat you button on the run — the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness. If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance, or repeat a single Thursday that has passed! But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen. Is it fair, I ask (my voice a little hoarse, since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage). You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash quiz taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no. I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is. The props are surprisingly precise. The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer. The farthest galaxies have been turned on. Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premiere. And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.

Czemu ty się, zła godzino, z niepotrzebnym mieszasz lękiem? Jesteś - a więc musisz minąć. Miniesz - a więc to jest piękne

Czytanie książek to najpiękniejsza zabawa, jaką sobie ludzkość wymyśliła.

شكراً لك يا قلبي/ لأنني استيقظتُ من جديد/ ولو أنّ اليوم هو الأحد/ يوم الراحة/ إلا أن تحت الضلوع/ تتواصل الحركة المعتادة لما قبل العيد

След всяка война някой трябва да разтреби. "Край и начало

Ningún día se repite, ni dos noches son iguales, ni dos besos parecidos ni dos citas similares.

البغض لا نخدع أنفسنا : هو يستطيع أن يبدع الجمال عظيمة هي اتقاداته في الليلة المظلمة رائعة هي خصلاته انفجاراته في الغبش الوردي هو سيد التناقض بين الضجيج و السكينة بين الدم القاني و الثلج الأبيض

Dividing earth and sky is not the right way to think about this wholeness. It only allows one to live at a more precise address-- were I to be searched for I'd be found much faster. My distinguishing marks are rapture and despair. From 'Sky', in the collection 'Miracle Fair

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.

Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that occupation out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them.

So what can they tell us, the writers of dream books, the scholars of oneiric signs and omens, the doctors with couches for analyses— if anything fits, it’s accidental, and for one reason only, that in our dreamings, in their shadowings and gleamings, in their multiplings, inconceivablings, in their haphazardings and widescatterings at times even a clear-cut meaning may slip through.

We call it a grain of sand, but it calls itself neither grain nor sand. It does just fine, without a name, whether general, particular, permanent, passing, incorrect, or apt. Our glance, our touch means nothing to it. It doesn’t feel itself seen and touched. And that it fell on the windowsill is only our experience, not its. For it, it is not different from falling on anything else with no assurance that it has finished falling or that it is falling still. The window has a wonderful view of a lake, but the view doesn’t view itself. It exists in this world colorless, shapeless, soundless, odorless, and painless. The lake’s floor exists floorlessly, and its shore exists shorelessly. The water feels itself neither wet nor dry and its waves to themselves are neither singular nor plural. They splash deaf to their own noise on pebbles neither large nor small. And all this beheath a sky by nature skyless in which the sun sets without setting at all and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud. The wind ruffles it, its only reason being that it blows. A second passes. A second second. A third. But they’re three seconds only for us. Time has passed like courier with urgent news. But that’s just our simile. The character is inverted, his hasts is make believe, his news inhuman.

We all use phrases such as ‘the ordinary world,’ ‘ordinary life,’ ‘the ordinary course of events.’ But in the language of poetry, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world.

Some People Some 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.

DESPEDIDA DE UN PAISAJE No le reprocho a la primavera que llegue de nuevo. No me quejo de que cumpla como todos los años con sus obligaciones. Comprendo que mi tristeza no frenara la hierba. Si los tallos vacilan será sólo por el viento. No me causa dolor que los sotos de alisos recuperen su murmullo. Me doy por enterada de que, como si vivieras, la orilla de cierto lago es tan bella como era. No le guardo rencor a la vista por la vista de una bahía deslumbrante. Puedo incluso imaginarme que otros, no nosotros, están sentados ahora mismo sobre el abedul derribado. Respeto su derecho a reír, a susurrar y a quedarse felices en silencio. Supongo incluso que los une el amor y que él la abraza a ella con brazos llenos de vida. Algo nuevo, como un trino, comienza a gorgotear entre los juncos. De veras los deseo que lo oigan. No exijo ningún cambio de las olas a la orilla, ligeras o perezosas, pero no obedientes. Nada le pido a las aguas junto al bosque, a veces esmeralda, a veces zafiro, a veces negras. Una cosa no acepto. Volver a ese lugar. Renuncio al privilegio de la presencia.

Teenager Me—a teenager? If she suddenly stood, here, now, before me, would I need to treat her as near and dear, although she's strange to me, and distant? Shed a tear, kiss her brow for the simple reason that we share a birthdate? So many dissimilarities between us that only the bones are likely still the same, the cranial vault, the eye sockets. Since her eyes seem a little larger, her eyelashes are longer, she's taller, and the whole body is tightly sheathed in smooth, unblemished skin. Relatives and friends still link us, it is true, but in her world nearly all are living, while in mine almost no one survives from that shared circle. We differ so profoundly, talk and think about completely different things. She knows next to nothing— but with a doggedness deserving better causes. I know much more— but not for sure. She shows me poems, written in a clear and careful script I haven't used for years. I read the poems, read them. Well, maybe that one if it were shorter and touched up in a couple of places. The rest do not bode well. The conversation stumbles. On her pathetic watch time is still cheap and unsteady. On mine it's far more precious and precise. Nothing in parting, a fixed smile and no emotion. Only when she vanishes, leaving her scarf in her haste. A scarf of genuine wool, in colored stripes crocheted for her by our mother. I've still got it.

Sublime Books The Known World, by Edward P. Jones The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro A Thousand Trails Home, by Seth Kantner House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday Faithful and Virtuous Night, by Louise Glück The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy, by Robert Bly The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, by Mahmoud Darwish Collected Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Andrew Hurley The Xenogenesis Trilogy, by Octavia E. Butler Map: Collected and Last Poems, by Wisława Szymborska In the Lateness of the World, by Carolyn Forché Angels, by Denis Johnson Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz Hope Against Hope, by Nadezhda Mandelstam Exhalation, by Ted Chaing Strange Empire, by Joseph Kinsey Howard Tookie’s Pandemic Reading Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzales The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston The House of Broken Angels, by Luis Alberto Urrea The Heartsong of Charging Elk, by James Welch Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey Let’s Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell The Aubrey/Maturin Novels, by Patrick O’Brian The Ibis Trilogy, by Amitav Ghosh The Golden Wolf Saga, by Linnea Hartsuyker Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Coyote Warrior, by Paul VanDevelder Incarceration Felon, by Reginald Dwayne Betts Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa Waiting for an Echo, by Christine Montross, M.D. The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander This Is Where, by Louise K. Waakaa’igan I Will Never See the World Again, by Ahmet Altan Sorrow Mountain, by Ani Pachen and Adelaide Donnelley American Prison, by Shane Bauer Solitary, by Albert Woodfox Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Y. Davis 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, by Ai Weiwei Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters. —Tookie * * * If you are interested in the books on these lists, please seek them out at your local independent bookstore. Miigwech! Acknowledgments

Plato, or Why For unclear reasons under unknown circumstances Ideal Being ceased to be satisfied. It could have gone on forever, hewn from darkness, forged from light, in its sleepy gardens above the world. Why on earth did it start seeking thrills in the bad company of matter? What use could it have for imitators, inept, ill-starred, lacking all prospects for eternity? Wisdom limping with a thorn stuck in its heel? Harmony derailed by roiling waters? Beauty holding unappealing entrails and Good — why the shadow when it didn’t have one before? There must have been some reason, however slight, but even the Naked Truth, busy ransacking the earth’s wardrobe, won’t betray it. Not to mention, Plato, those appalling poets, litter scattered by the breeze from under statues, scraps from that great Silence up on high.

... in daily speech, where we don't stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like "the ordinary world," "ordinary life," "the ordinary course of events" ... But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world.

We treat each other with exceeding courtesy; we says, it’s great to see you after all these years. Our tigers drink milk. Our hawks tread the ground. Our sharks have all drowned. Our wolves yawn beyond the open cage. Our snakes have shed their lightning, our apes their flights of fancy, our peacocks have renounced their plumes. The bats flew out of our hair long ago. We fall silent in mid-sentence, all smiles, past help. Our humans don’t know how to talk to one another.

هردو بر اين باورند كه حسي ناگهاني آنها را به هم پيوند داده. چنين اطميناني زيباست، اما ترديد زيبا تر است. چون قبلا همديگر را نمي شناختند، گمان مي بردند هرگز چيزي ميان آنها نبوده. اما نظر خيابان ها، پله ها و راهروهايي كه آن دو مي توانسته اند از سال ها پيش از كنار هم گذشته باشند، در اين باره چيست؟ دوست داشتم از آنها بپرسم آيا به ياد نمي آورند شايد درون دري چرخان زماني روبروي هم؟ يك ببخشيد در ازدحام مردم؟ يك صداي اشتباه گرفته ايد در گوشي تلفن؟ - ولي پاسخشان را مي دانم. - نه، چيزي به ياد نمي آورند. بسيار شگفت زده مي شدند اگر مي دانستند، كه ديگر مدت هاست بازيچه اي در دست اتفاق بوده اند. هنوز كاملا آماده نشده كه براي آنها تبديل به سرنوشتي شود، آنها را به هم نزديك مي كرد دور مي كرد، جلو راهشان را مي گرفت و خنده ي شيطانيش را فرو مي خورد و كنار مي جهيد. علائم و نشانه هايي بوده هر چند ناخوانا. شايد سه سال پيش يا سه شنبه ي گذشته برگ درختي از شانه ي يكيشان به شانه ي ديگري پرواز كرده؟ چيزي بوده كه يكي آن را گم كرده ديگري آن را يافته و برداشته. از كجا معلوم توپي در بوته هاي كودكي نبوده باشد؟ دستگيره ها و زنگ درهايي بوده كه يكيشان لمس كرده و در فاصله اي كوتاه آن ديگري. چمدان هايي كنار هم در انبار. شايد يك شب هر دو يك خواب را ديده باشند، كه بلافاصله بعد از بيدار شدن محو شده. بالاخره هر آغازي فقط ادامه ايست و كتاب حوادث هميشه از نيمه ي آن باز مي شود.

Nothing Twice     Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.   Even if there is no one dumber, if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce, you can’t repeat the class in summer: this course is only offered once.   No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with exactly the same kisses.   One day, perhaps, some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.   The next day, though you’re here with me, I can’t help looking at the clock: A rose? A rose? What could that be? Is it a flower or a rock?   Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: today is always gone tomorrow.   With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

اليقظة لا تتلاشى .كما تتلاشى الأحلام لا همهمة ولا جرس ،يُبددها لا صرخة أو جلبة .تصدر عنها مُشوشة ومُلتبسة ،هي صورُ الأحلام .مما يدفع لتفسيرها بطرقٍ عديدة ومختلفة ،اليقظةُ تعني اليقظة .وهذا هو اللغز الأكبر للأحلام مفاتيح ،اليقظة تنفتح وحدها .ولا تسمح بإغلاقها ،تتناثر منها الشهادات المدرسية والنجوم تتساقط منها الفراشات ،وسخانات المكاوي القديمة والقبعات بلا رؤوسها .وجماجم الغيوم يتكون من ذلك لغز .لا يمكن حله .بدوننا ما كان للأحلام أن تكون والذي بدونه ما كانت اليقظة ،غيرُ معلوم ونتاجُ أرقهِ .يستغرق كل من يستيقظ ،ليست الأحلام هي المجنونة ،المجنونة اليقظة ،ولو بسبب الإصرار الذي به تتشبث .بمسيرة الأحداث في الأحلام مازال ،يعيش من مات منا حديثا يبدو أنه معافى .ويتمتع بالشباب اليقظة تطرح أمامنا .جسده الميت .اليقظة لا تتراجع قيد أنملة ،أثيرية الأحلام تجعل .الذاكرة تتخلص منها بسهولة .اليقظة لا تخاف من النسيان يا لها من صلابة ،تتربع على كاهلنا ،تُثقل الصدر .تتكوم تحت القدمين ،لا مفر منها لأنها تُصاحبنا في كل مهرب وليس هناك من محطة على طريق رحلتنا .دون أن تنتظرنا فيها

Classifieds" WHOEVER’S found out what location compassion (heart’s imagination) can be contacted at these days, is herewith urged to name the place; and sing about it in full voice, and dance like crazy and rejoice beneath the frail birch that appears to be upon the verge of tears. I TEACH silence in all languages through intensive examination of: the starry sky, the Sinanthropus’ jaws, a grasshopper’s hop, an infant’s fingernails, plankton, a snowflake. I RESTORE lost love. Act now! Special offer! You lie on last year’s grass bathed in sunlight to the chin while winds of summers past caress your hair and seem to lead you in a dance. For further details, write: “Dream.” WANTED: someone to mourn the elderly who die alone in old folks’ homes. Applicants, don’t send forms or birth certificates. All papers will be torn, no receipts will be issued at this or later dates. FOR PROMISES made by my spouse, who’s tricked so many with his sweet colors and fragrances and sounds– dogs barking, guitars in the street– into believing that they still might conquer loneliness and fright, I cannot be responsible. Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

Would we really be driven to darkest despair by the news that life doesn’t exist beyond Earth? (…) But let’s stop and think about such a revelation. Would that really be the worst of all possible news? Perhaps just the opposite—it would sober us, brace us, teach us mutual respect, point us toward a slightly more human way of life? Perhaps we wouldn’t talk so much nonsense, tell so many lies, if we knew that they were echoing throughout the cosmos? Maybe a single, other life would finally gain the value it deserves, the value of a phenomenon, a revelation, a specimen unique to the entire universe?

The world – whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we've just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don’t know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we've got reserved tickets, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world – it is astonishing. But ‘astonishing’ is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We’re astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness we've grown accustomed to. Now the point is, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn't based on comparison with something else. Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like ‘the ordinary world,’ ‘ordinary life,’ ‘the ordinary course of events’ … But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world.

...They'd be amazed to hear that Chance has been toying with them now for years. Not quite ready yet To become their Destiny, it pushed them close, drove them apart, it barred their path, stifling a laugh, and then leaped aside. There were signs and signals, Even if they couldn't read them yet. Perhaps three years ago or just last Tuesday a certain leaf fluttered from one shoulder to another? Something was dropped and then picked up. Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished into childhood's thicket? There were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. Suitcases checked and standing side by side. One night, perhaps, the same dream, grown hazy by morning. Every beginning Is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones. Four A.M. The hour between night and day. The hour between toss and turn. The hour of thirty-year-olds. The hour swept clean for roosters’ crowing. The hour when the earth takes back its warm embrace. The hour of cool drafts from extinguished stars. The hour of do-we-vanish-too-without-a-trace. Empty hour. Hollow. Vain. Rock bottom of all the other hours. No one feels fine at four a.m. If ants feel fine at four a.m., we’re happy for the ants. And let five a.m. come if we’ve got to go on living.

Four billion people on this earth, but my imagination is the way it's always been: bad with large numbers. It is still moved by particularity. It flits about the darkness like a flashlight beam, disclosing only random faces, while the rest go blindly by, unthought of, unpitied. Not even a Dante could have stopped that. So what do you do when you're not, even with all the muses on your side? Non omnis moriar—a premature worry. Yet am I fully alive, and is that enough? It never has been, and even less so now. I select by rejecting, for there's no other way, but what I reject, is more numerous, more dense, more intrusive than ever. At the cost of untold losses—a poem, a sigh. I reply with a whisper to a thunderous calling. How much I am silent about I can't say. A mouse at the foot of mother mountain. Life lasts as long as a few lines of claws in the sand. My dreams—even they are not as populous as they should be. There is more solitude in them than crowds or clamor. Sometimes someone long dead will drop by for a bit. A single hand turns a knob. Annexes of echo overgrow the empty house. I run from the threshold down into the quiet valley seemingly no one's—an anachronism by now. Where does all this space still in me come from— that I don't know.

Nothing Twice Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice. Even if there is no one dumber, if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce, you can’t repeat the class in summer: this course is only offered once. No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses. One day, perhaps some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent. The next day, though you’re here with me, I can’t help looking at the clock: A rose? A rose? What could that be? Is it a flower or a rock? Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: Today is always gone tomorrow. With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

Мъжко стопанство Той е от тези мъже, дето всичко си вършат самички. Трябва да го обичаш със все шкафчета и полички. С онова, което е в тях или навън се подава. Няма вещ, която съхранение не заслужава. Чукчета, клещи, длета и свредели, и епруветки, гвоздеи, шнурчета, дюбели разни, някакви четки, тубички от лепило, колекция камъни речни, менгеме и наковалня, бурканче с тайнствена течност, стар будилник, край него - всичките извадени части, мъртъв бръмбар в шишенце, флакончета, смазки и пасти, летвички къси и дълги, уплътнения, кламери, три пера от водна кокошка от езерото Мамри, няколко тапи от шампанско, затънали във цимент, две стъкълца, потъмнели при някакъв експеримент, плочки, дъсчици и гумички, картончета дребни, които били са или пък ще бъдат потребни, ключове цяла дузина, кожа, ръкави от дрешка, някакви дръжки за нещо, и прашка съвсем момчешка... Да изхвърлим - попитах - част от богатството прашно? Този, когото обичам, изгледа ме страшно. "Męskie gospodarstwo" превод: Иван Вълев

Under a Certain Little Star" My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity in case I’m mistaken. May happiness not be angry if I take it for my own. May the dead forgive me that their memory’s but a flicker. My apologies to time for the multiplicity of the world overlooked each second. My apologies to an old love for treating the new one as the first. Forgive me far-off wars for taking my flowers home. Forgive me open wounds for pricking my finger. My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss. My apologies to those in railway stations for sleeping comfortably at five in the morning. Pardon me hounded hope for laughing sometimes. Pardon me deserts for not rushing in with a spoonful of water. And you O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage, forever still and staring at the same spot, absolve me even if you happened to be stuffed. My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs. My apologies to large questions for small answers. Truth, do not pay me too much attention. Solemnity, be magnanimous to me. Endure, O mystery of being that I might pull threads from your veil. Soul, don’t blame me that I’ve got you so seldom. My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere. My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman. I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me, because I myself am my own obstacle. Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and then labor to make them light.

LA ESTACIÓN DE FERROCARRIL. Mi no llegada a la ciudad de N tuvo lugar puntualmente. Fuiste avisado con una carta no enviada. Lograste no llegar a la hora prevista. El tren llegó al andén número tres. Bajó mucha gente. Entre la muchedumbre se dirigió a la salida la ausencia de mi persona. Varias mujeres me sustituyeron rápidamente en aquella prisa. A una de ellas se acercó corriendo alguien desconocido para mí pero ella lo reconoció al instante. Ambos intercambiaron un beso no nuestro, durante el cual se perdió no mi maleta. La estación de la ciudad de N pasó bien el examen de la existencia objetiva. La totalidad estaba en su lugar. Los detalles se movían por las vías marcadas. Tuvo lugar incluso la cita acordada. Fuera del alcance de nuestra presencia. En el paraíso perdido de la posibilidad. En otra parte. En otra parte. Como suenan estas palabras.