The Questions You Ask Yourself What do a smile and handshake hold? Do your greetings never keep you as far apart as other people sometimes are when passing judgment at first glance? Do you open each human fate like a book, seeking feelings not in fonts or formats? Are you sure you decipher people completely? You gave an evasive word in answering, a bright joke in place of openness -- how do you tally your losses? Stunted friendships, frozen worlds. Do you know that friendship, like love, requires teamwork? Someone missed a step in this demanding effort. In your friends' errors do you bear no blame? Someone complained, advised. How many tears ran dry before you lent a hand? Jointly responsible for the happiness of millennia, don't you slight the single minute of a tear, a wince? Do you never overlook another's effort? A glass stood on the table, no one noticed until it fell, toppled by a thoughtless gesture. Are people really so simple as far as people go? Hania Now see, here's Hania, the good servant. And those aren't frying pans, you know, they're halos. And that's a holy image, knight and serpent. The serpent means vanity in this vale of woes. And that's no necklace, that's her rosary. Her shoes have toes turned up from daily kneeling. Scarf dark as all the nights she sits up, weary, and waits to hear the morning church bells pealing. Scrubbing the mirror once, she saw a devil: Bless me, Father, he shot a nasty look. Blue with yellow stripes, eyes black as kettles -- you don't think he'll write me in his book? And so she gives at Mass, she prays the mysteries, and buys a small heart with a silver flame. Since work began on the new rectory, the devils have all run away in shame. The cost is high, preserving souls from sin, but only old folks come here, scraping by. With so much of nothing, razor-thin, Hania would vanish in the Needle's Eye. May, renounce your hues for wintery gray. Leafy bough, throw off your greenery. Clouds, repent; sun, cast your beams away. Spring, save your blooms for heaven's scenery. I never heard her laughter or her tears. Raised humble, she owns nothing but her skin. A shadow walks beside her -- her mortal fears, her tattered kerchief yammers in the wind. Still Life with a Balloon Returning memories? No, at the time of death I'd like to see lost objects return instead. Avalanches of gloves, coats, suitcases, umbrellas -- come, and I'll say at last: What good's all this? Safety pins, two odd combs, a paper rose, a knife, some string -- come, and I'll say at last: I haven't missed you. Please turn up, key, come out, wherever you've been hiding, in time for me to say: You've gotten rusty, friend! Downpours of affidavits, permits and questionnaires, rain down and I will say: I see the sun behind you. My watch, dropped in a river, bob up and let me seize you -- then, face to face, I'll say: Your so-called time is up. And lastly, toy balloon once kidnapped by the wind -- come home, and I will say: There are no children here. Fly out the open window and into the wide world; let someone else shout "Look!" and I will cry. Excerpted from Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wislawa Szymborska All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
