{"id":2676,"date":"2012-02-03T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mamamonk.com\/?p=2676"},"modified":"2012-02-03T06:00:03","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T12:00:03","slug":"poem-a-day-friday-wislawa-szymborska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2012\/02\/poem-a-day-friday-wislawa-szymborska\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem-a-Day Friday: Wislawa Szymborska"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

msmuse.tumblr.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

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In graduate school I took a course on 20th century Polish poets (Poland has produced some of the world\u2019s best poetry in the past 100 years). It was a fantastic class. In it, I studied Wis\u0142awa Szymborska<\/a>, a woman whose poems were moving and full of delicate images that always cut hard. I love what little I know of her work because of it the way it pulls me toward emotion. It builds and builds and builds until I can\u2019t help but fall with her to the other side. I amazed that her poems, which were not even written in my language can still move me so deeply.<\/p>\n

When I heard about her death yesterday morning<\/a>, I went out to the garage in search of the book of her poems that I had read and marked in the early 2000s. It was nowhere to be found. (The movers lost a box of books in our move and I\u2019m still discovering what I\u2019m missing.) After grieving the loss of her book with some dark chocolate, I went online to find her poems and try to remember. This was yesterday\u2019s favorite discovery:<\/p>\n

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\n

Under One Small Star<\/h3>\n

by Wislawa Szymborska (translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczakby)<\/p>\n

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
\nMy apologies to necessity if I\u2019m mistaken, after all.
\nPlease, don\u2019t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
\nMay my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
\nMy apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
\nMy apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
\nForgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
\nForgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
\nI apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
\nI apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
\nPardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
\nPardon me, deserts, that I don\u2019t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
\nAnd you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
\nyour gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
\nforgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
\nMy apologies to the felled tree for the table\u2019s four legs.
\nMy apologies to great questions for small answers.
\nTruth, please don\u2019t pay me much attention.
\nDignity, please be magnanimous.
\nBear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
\nSoul, don\u2019t take offense that I\u2019ve only got you now and then.
\nMy apologies to everything that I can\u2019t be everywhere at once.
\nMy apologies to everyone that I can\u2019t be each woman and each man.
\nI know I won\u2019t be justified as long as I live,
\nsince I myself stand in my own way.
\nDon\u2019t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
\nthen labor heavily so that they may seem light.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wislawa Szymborska, 1923 \u2013 2012<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 In graduate school I took a course on 20th century Polish poets (Poland has produced some of the world\u2019s best poetry in the past 100 years). It was a fantastic class. In it, I studied Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, a woman whose poems were moving and full of delicate images that always cut hard. I love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":999,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[101],"class_list":["post-2676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-2","tag-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\nPoem-a-Day Friday: Wislawa Szymborska - Micha Boyett<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  In graduate school I took a course on 20th century Polish poets (Poland has produced some of the world's best poetry in the past 100 years). 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