Wislawa Szymborska Quote

I am too near to be dreamt of by him.I do not fly over him, do not escape from himunder the roots of a tree. I am too near.Not in my voice sings the fish in the net,not from my finger rolls the ring.I am too near. A big house is on firewithout me, calling for help. Too nearfor a bell dangling from my hair to chime.Too near to enter as a guestbefore whom walls glide apart by themselves.Never again will I die so lightly,so much beyond my flesh, so inadvertentlyas once in his dream. Too near.I taste the sound, I see the glittering husk of this wordas I lie immobile in his embrace. He sleeps,more accessible now to her, seen but oncea cashier of a wandering circus with one lion,than to me, who am at his side.For her now in him a valley grows,russet-leaved, closed by a snowy mountainin the bright blue air. I am too nearto fall to him from the sky. My screamcould wake him up. Poor thingI am, limited to my shape,I who was a birch, who was a lizard,who would come out of my cocoonsshimmering the colors of my skins. Who possessedthe grace of disappearing from astonished eyes,which is a wealth of wealths. I am near,too near for him to dream of me.I slide my arm from under the sleeper’s headand it is numb, full of swarming pins,on the tip of each, waiting to be counted,the fallen angels sit.