The book of events

Every beginning
is only a sequel after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

Wislawa Szymborska, 'Love at First Sight' in View with a Grain of Sand (faber & faber, 1995) p. 198

So much Everything

There is so much Everything
that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.

Wislawa Szymborska, 'Reality Demands' in View with a Grain of Sand (faber & faber, 1995) p. 184

What's important

So it happens that I am and look.
Above me a white butterfly is fluttering through the air
on wings that are its alone,
and a shadow skims through my hands
that is none other than itself, no one else's but its own.

When I see such things, I'm no longer sure
that what's important
is more important than what's not.

Wislawa Szymborska, 'No Title Required' in View with a Grain of Sand (faber & faber, 1995) pp. 176-177

When you take to the woods

Even when you take to the woods,
you're taking political steps
on political grounds.

Wislawa Szymborska, 'Children of Our Age' in View with a Grain of Sand (faber & faber, 1995) p. 149

Life will always be short

Life, however long, will always be short.
Too short for anything to be added.

Wislawa Szymborska, 'Our Ancestors' Short Lives' in View with a Grain of Sand (faber & faber, 1995) p. 144

We call it a grain of sand

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 beneath 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.

Wislawa Szymborska, 'View with a Grain of Sand' in View with a Grain of Sand (faber & faber, 1995) pp. 135-136

Only what is human can truly be foreign

Only what is human can truly be foreign.
The rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.

Wislawa Szymborska, 'Psalm' in View with a Grain of Sand (faber & faber, 1995) p. 100