Wislawa Szymborska Quote
Letters to the DeadWe read the letters of the dead like puzzled gods --gods nevertheless, because we know what happened later.We know what money wasn’t repaid,the widows who rushed to remarry.Poor, unseeing dead,deceived, fallible, toiling in solemn foolery.We see the signs made behind their backs,catch the rustle of ripped-up wills.They sit there before us, ridiculousas things perched on buttered bread,or fling themselves after whisked-away hats.Their bad taste -- Napoleon, steam and electricity,deadly remedies for curable diseases,the foolish apocalypse of St. John,the false paradise on earth of Jean-Jacques . . .Silently, we observe their pawns on the board-- but shifted three squares on.Everything they foresaw has happened quite differently,or a little differently -- which is the same thing.The most fervent stare trustingly into our eyes;by their reckoning, they’ll see perfection there.
Letters to the DeadWe read the letters of the dead like puzzled gods --gods nevertheless, because we know what happened later.We know what money wasn’t repaid,the widows who rushed to remarry.Poor, unseeing dead,deceived, fallible, toiling in solemn foolery.We see the signs made behind their backs,catch the rustle of ripped-up wills.They sit there before us, ridiculousas things perched on buttered bread,or fling themselves after whisked-away hats.Their bad taste -- Napoleon, steam and electricity,deadly remedies for curable diseases,the foolish apocalypse of St. John,the false paradise on earth of Jean-Jacques . . .Silently, we observe their pawns on the board-- but shifted three squares on.Everything they foresaw has happened quite differently,or a little differently -- which is the same thing.The most fervent stare trustingly into our eyes;by their reckoning, they’ll see perfection there.
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About Wislawa Szymborska
Szymborska was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality". She became better known internationally as a result. Her work has been translated into many European languages, as well as into Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Persian and Chinese.