Wislawa Szymborska: Writing A Resume

What needs to be done? Fill out the application and enclose the resume.

Regardless of the length of life, a resume is best kept short.

Concise, well-chosen facts are de rigueur. Landscapes are replaced by addresses, shaky memories give way to unshakable dates.

Of all your loves, mention only the marriage; of all your children, only those who were born.

Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned.

Write as if you'd never talked to yourself and always kept yourself at arm's length.

Pass over in silence your dogs, cats, birds, dusty keepsakes, friends, and dreams.

Price, not worth, and title, not what's inside. His shoe size, not where he's off to, that one you pass off as yourself. In addition, a photograph with one ear showing, What matters is its shape, not what it hears. What is there to hear, anyway? The clatter of paper shredders.

Wislawa Szymborska: Kora reggel

Még alszom,

de közben sorakoznak a tények.

Fehérlik az ablak,

szürkül a sötétség,

a szoba kikászálódik a homályos térből,

ingatag, sápadt sávok

keresnek támaszt benne.

Sorban, sietség nélkül,

mert szertartás ez,

földerengenek a mennyezet és a falak síkjai,

elválnak a formák,

egyik a másiktól,

bal oldal a jobbtól.

Virradnak a tárgyak közötti távolságok,

csicseregnek az első csillogások

egy poháron, egy kilincsen.

Már nem csupán tűnik, hanem egészen van

amit tegnap félretoltak,

ami a padlóra esett,

ami a keretbe fér.

Csak a részletek

nem kerültek még a látómezőbe.

De vigyázat, vigyázat, vigyázat,

sok jel mutatja, hogy visszatérnek a színek

és a legkisebb dolog is visszanyeri saját árnyékát

árnyalatával együtt.

Túl ritkán csodálkozom ezen, bár kellene.

Rendszerint az elkésett tanú szerepében ébredek,

mikor a csoda már végbement,

a nap beiktatódott

és mesteri módon reggeliséggé vált a hajnaliság.

-- Csordás Gábor fordítása

Wislawa Szymborska: The Terrorist, He's Watching

The bomb in the bar will explode at thirteen twenty.
Now it's just thirteen sixteen.
There's still time for some to go in,
and some to come out.
The terrorist has already crossed the street.
The distance keeps him out of danger,
and what a view - just like the movies:
A woman in a yellow jacket, she's going in.
A man in dark glasses, he's coming out.
Teen-agers in jeans, they're talking.
Thirteen seventeen and four seconds.
The short one, he's lucky, he's getting on a scooter,
but the tall one, he's going in.
Thirteen seventeen and forty seconds.
That girl, she's walking along with a green ribbon in her hair.
But then a bus suddenly pulls in front of her.
Thirteen eighteen.
The girl's gone.
Was she that dumb, did she go in or not,
we'll see when they carry them out.
Thirteen nineteen.
Somehow no one's going in.
Another guy, fat, bald, is leaving, though.
Wait a second, looks like he's looking for something in his pockets and
at thirteen twenty minus ten seconds
he goes back in for his crummy gloves.
Thirteen twenty exactly.
This waiting, it's taking forever.
Any second now.
No, not yet.
Yes, now.
The bomb, it explodes.

Wislawa Szymborska: Nem halhat meg a macskának csak úgy

Nem halhat meg a macskának csak úgy.
Mert mit kezdjen a macska...
egy üres lakásban.
Ugráljon a falra.
Dörgölőzzön a bútorokhoz.
Mintha semmi se változott volna,
mégis kicserélődött minden.
Minden a helyén,
mégis szanaszét.
És esténként már nem ég a lámpa.

Léptek a lépcsőházban,
de ezek nem azok.
Egy kéz halat tesz a tálba,
de ez a kéz sem ugyanaz.

Valami nem kezdődik el
a megszokott időben.
Valami nem úgy pereg le,
ahogy kellene.
Valaki itt volt és itt volt,
aztán egyszer csak eltűnt,
és most makacsul nincs.

Minden szekrénybe belestünk,
végigfutottunk a polcokon.
Bepréselődtünk a dívány alá, hátha.
A tilalmat megszegve
még a papírokat is szétkotortuk.
Mit tehetünk még.
Alszunk, várakozunk.

Csak jöjjön vissza,
csak kerüljön elő.
Akkor majd meglátja,
hogy a macskával nem lehet így.
Majd úgy megyünk elé,
mint akinek cseppet sem sietős,
óvatosan,
vérig sértett tappancsokon.
És semmi nyávogás, ugrálás eleinte.

--Csordás Gábor fordítása

Wisława Szymborska: Néhány szó a lélekről

Van lelkünk, van.
Ám egyikünknek sincs folyton-folyvást
és mindig.
Nap nap után,
esztendő esztendőre is
eltelhet nélküle.
Olykor csak a gyermekkor
félelmeiben, rajongásában
telepszik meg egy időre.
Olykor csak a felismerésben,
hogy megöregedtünk.
Csak elvétve segédkezik
olyan keserves tennivalóknál,
mint bútorokat tologatni,
bőröndöket cipelni vagy
órákig gyalogolni egy szűk cipőben.
Űrlapok kitöltésekor
vagy húsdarálás idején
rendszerint szabadnapos.
Ezer beszélgetésünkből
egyben ha részt vesz,
és még ez sem törvényszerű,
hiszen többre tartja a csendet.
Ha testünk szaggatni kezd és kínozni,
lopva távozik a szolgálatból.
Válogatós fajta:
nem szívesen lát minket tömegben,
a fölényért vívott harcunktól és
zavaros ügyeinktől a hideg kirázza.
Az öröm s a bánat előtte
nem két külön érzés.
Csupán ha egybekapcsolódnak,
lesz jelenvalóvá számunkra.
Bátran számíthatunk rá,
ha végképp elbizonytalanodtunk,
és mindent tudni akarunk.
Az anyagi világ tárgyai közül
az ingaóra a kedvence és
a tükör, mely akkor is szorgoskodik,
ha senki felé nem pillant.
Honnan toppan elő s faképnél
mikor hagy ismét, nem árulja el –
ám hogy megkérdezzük, feltétlen elvárja.
Úgy fest tehát, hogy egyfelől
szükségünk van rá,
de valami okból neki is
szüksége lehet ránk.

--Zsille Gábor fordítása

Wislawa Szymborska: Still

In sealed box cars travel
names across the land,
and how far they will travel so,
and will they ever get out,
don't ask, I won't say, I don't know.
The name Nathan strikes fist against wall,
the name Isaac, demented, sings,
the name Sarah calls out for water for
the name Aaron that's dying of thirst.
Don't jump while it's moving, name David.
You're a name that dooms to defeat,
given to no one, and homeless,
too heavy to bear in this land.
Let your son have a Slavic name,
for here they count hairs on the head,
for here they tell good from evil
by names and by eyelids' shape.
Don't jump while it's moving. Your son will be Lech.
Don't jump while it's moving. Not time yet.
Don't jump. The night echoes like laughter
mocking clatter of wheels upon tracks.
A cloud made of people moved over the land,
a big cloud gives a small rain, one tear,
a small rain--one tear, a dry season.
Tracks lead off into black forest.
Cor-rect, cor-rect clicks the wheel. Gladeless forest.
Cor-rect, cor-rect. Through the forest a convoy of clamors.
Cor-rect, cor-rect. Awakened in the night I hear
cor-rect, cor-rect, crash of silence on silence.

Wisława Szymborska: Photograph from September 11

They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.

I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

Wislawa Szymborska: Some People

Some people fleeing some other people.
In some country under the sun
and some clouds.

They leave behind some of their everything,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected.

On their backs are pitchers and bundles,
the emptier, the heavier from one day to the next.

Taking place stealthily is somebody's stopping,
and in the commotion, somebody's bread somebody's snatching
and a dead child somebody's shaking.

In front of them some still not the right way,
nor the bridge that should be
over a river strangely rosy.
Around them, some gunfire, at times closer, at times farther off,
and, above, a plane circling somewhat.

Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or even better, non-being
for a little or a long while.

Something else is yet to happen, only where and what?
Someone will head toward them, only when and who,
in how many shapes and with what intentions?
Given a choice,
maybe he will choose not to be the enemy and
leave them with some kind of life.

--translated by Joanna Trzeciak

Wislawa Szymborska: A statisztikákhoz

Száz ember közül:
mindent jobban tud másoknál:
– ötvenkettő;

mindenben bizonytalan:
– majdnem az összes többi;

segíteni kész,
ha ez nem sok időt igényel:
– negyvenkilenc, nem is rossz;

mindig jó,
mert nem tud másmilyen lenni:
– négy, na jó, talán öt;

irigység nélkül csodálni képes:
– tizennyolc;

folytonos félelemben él
valakitől vagy valamitől:
– hetvenhét;

képes a boldogságra:
– legföljebb húszegynéhány;

magában ártalmatlan,
tömegben megvadul:
– több mint a fele, ez biztos;

kegyetlen,
ha a körülmények rákényszerítik:
– jobb, ha ezt nem tudjuk,

még körülbelül se;

utólag okos:
– nem több, mint előzőleg;

csak dolgokat követel az élettől:
– harminc,
de bárcsak tévednék;

sajgó tagokkal kuporog
zseblámpa nélkül a sötétben:
– nyolcvanhárom,
előbb vagy utóbb;

szánalomra méltó:
– kilencvenkilenc;

halandó:
– száz a százból.
Ez a szám, egyelőre, változhatatlan.

--Fordította: Csordás Gábor

Wislawa Szymborska: Life-while-you-wait

Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it's mine. I can't exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot
just what this play's all about.

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can't conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

Words and impulses you can't take back,
stars you'll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run ?
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven't seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn't even clear my throat offstage).

You'd be wrong to think that it's just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I'm standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there's no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I've done.

Wislawa Szymborska: Parable

Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper,
with these words: "Somebody save me! I'm here. The ocean cast me on this desert island.
I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I'm here!"

"There's no date. I bet it's already too late anyway.
It could have been floating for years," the first fisherman said.

"And he doesn't say where. It's not even clear which ocean," the second fisherman said.

"It's not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere," the third fisherman said.

They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That's how it goes with universal truths.

Wislawa Szymborska: Four a.m.

The hour between night and day.
The hour between toss and turn.
The hour of thirty-year-olds.

The hour swept clean for rooster's crowing.
The hour when the earth takes back its warm embrace.
The hour of cool drafts from extinguished stars.
The hour of do-we-vanish-too-without-a-trace.

Empty hour.
Hollow. Vain.
Rock bottom of all the other hours.

No one feels fine at four a.m.
If ants feel fine at four a.m.,
we're happy for the ants. And let five a.m. come
if we've got to go on living.

(Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Wislawa Szymborska: Szókincs

„La Pologne? La Pologne? Ott rettentő hideg van, nem?” – kérdezte a hölgy megkönnyebbülten sóhajtva. Annyi ország tűnt fel a térképen újabban, a legbiztosabb tán az éghajlatról beszélni.

„Asszonyom” – válaszolnám szívem szerint – „népem költői kesztyűben alkotnak. Nem állítom persze, hogy örökké viselik; leveszik, ha kellően melegen süt a hold. Rozmárpásztoraink egyszerű életét rekedten rivalló strófákban dicsőítik – csak ez fojtja el a szélviharok állandó robaját. Klasszicistáink tintába mártott jégcsapokkal vésik ódáikat a letaposott hótorlaszokba. A többiek, a Dekadensek könnyek helyett hópelyhekkel siratják sorsukat. A vízbefúlásra vágyónak fejszével kell áttörnie a jégpáncélt. Asszonyom, drága asszonyom.”

Ezt szeretném mondani. De elfelejtettem, hogy van a rozmár franciául. És a jégcsapban meg a fejszében sem vagyok teljesen biztos.

„La Pologne? La Pologne? Ott rettentő hideg van, nem?”
„Pas du tout” – válaszolom jegesen.

Wislawa Szymborska: In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself

The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.

A jackal doesn't understand remorse.
Lions and lice don't waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they're right?

Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,

in every other way they're light.

On this third planet of the sun
among the signs of bestiality
a clear conscience is Number One.

Wislawa Szymborska: In Praise of My Sister

My sister doesn't write poems,
and it's unlikely that she'll suddenly start writing poems.
She takes after her mother, who didn't write poems,
and also her father, who likewise didn't write poems.
I feel safe beneath my sister's roof:
my sister's husband would rather die than write poems.
And, even though this is starting to sound as repetitive as Peter Piper,
the truth is, none of my relatives write poems.

My sister's desk drawers don't hold old poems,
and her handbag doesn't hold new ones.
When my sister asks me over for lunch,
I know she doesn't want to read me her poems.
Her soups are delicious without ulterior motives.
Her coffee doesn't spill on manuscripts.
There are many families in which nobody writes poems,
but once it starts up it's hard to quarantine.
Sometimes poetry cascades down through the generations,
creating fatal whirlpools where family love may founder.
My sister has tackled oral prose with some success,
but her entire written opus consists of postcards from vacations
whose text is only the same promise every year:
when she gets back, she'll have
so much
much
much to tell.

Wislawa Szymborska: Vietnam

"Woman, what's your name?" "I don't know."
"How old are you? Where are you from?" "I don't know."
"Why did you dig that burrow?" "I don't know."
"How long have you been hiding?" "I don't know."
"Why did you bite my finger?" "I don't know."
"Don't you know that we won't hurt you?" "I don't know."
"Whose side are you on?" "I don't know."
"This is war, you've got to choose." "I don't know."
"Does your village still exist?" "I don't know."
"Are those your children?" "Yes."

Wislawa Szymborska: Evaluation of an Unwritten Poem

In the poem's opening words
the authoress asserts that while the Earth is small,
the sky is excessively large and
in it there are, I quote, "too many stars for our own good."
In her depiction of the sky, one detects a certain helplessness,
the authoress is lost in a terrifying expanse,
she is startled by the planets' lifelessness,
and within her mind (which can only be called imprecise)
a question

 soon arises:
whether we are, in the end, alone
under the sun, all suns that ever shone.
In spite of all the laws of probability!
And today's universally accepted assumptions!
In the face of the irrefutable evidence that may fall
into human hands any day now! That's poetry for you.
Meanwhile, our Lady Bard returns to Earth,
a planet, so she claims, which "makes its rounds without eyewitnesses,"
the only "science fiction that our cosmos can afford."
The despair of a Pascal (1623-1662, note mine)
is, the authoress implies, unrivalled
on any, say, Andromeda or Cassiopeia.
Our solitary existence exacerbates our sense of obligation,
and raises the inevitable question, How are we to live et cetera?,
since "we can't avoid the void."
"'My God,' man calls out to Himself,
'have mercy on me, I beseech thee, show me the way...'"
The authoress is distressed by the thought of life squandered so freely,
as if our supplies were boundless.
She is likewise worried by wars, which are, in her perverse opinion,
always lost on both sides,
and by the "authoritorture" (sic!) of some people by others.
Her moralistic intentions glimmer throughout the poem.
They might shine brighter beneath a less naive pen.
Not under this one, alas. Her fundamentally unpersuasive thesis
(that we may well be, in the end, alone
under the sun, all suns that ever shone)
combined with her lackadaisical style (a mixture
of loffy rhetoric and ordinary speech)
forces the question: Whom might this piece convince?
The answer can only be: No one. Q. E. D.

Wislawa Szymborska: We Knew The World Backwards And Forwards

We knew the world backwards and forwards
So small it fit in a handshake
So easy it could be described in a smile
As plain as the echoes of old truths and a prayer

History did not greet us with triumphant fanfare
It flung dirty sand in our eyes
Ahead of us were distant roads leading nowhere
Poisoned wells, bitter bread

The spoils of war is our knowledge of the world
So large it fits in a handshake
So hard it could be described in a smile
As strange as the echoes of old truths and a prayer.

Wislawa Szymborska: Possibilities

I prefer the cinema.
I prefer cats.
I prefer oak-trees by the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking humans
to myself loving humanity.
I prefer having a thread with a needle close at hand.
I prefer green.
I prefer not claiming that
the intellect should be blamed for everything.

I pefer exceptions.
I prefer leaving before.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer old marked illustrations.
I prefer being laughable because of writing poems
to being laughable because of not writing them.
I prefer odd anniversaries in love life,
to be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who do not promise me anything.
I prefer calculated goodness to goodness that is too gullible.
I prefer the earth in civvy street.
I prefer conquered countries to the conquering ones.
I prefer having my objections.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimm tales to the first pages of newspapers.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with their tails unclipped.
I prefer fair eyes since mine are dark.
I prefer drawers.
I prefer many things I have not listed above
to many others unlisted here.
I prefer noughts that are loose
to those queueing for a digit.
I prefer insect time to stellar time.
I prefer touching wood.
I prefer not asking how much longer and when.
I prefer considering even such a possibility
that existence has its reasons.

Wislawa Szimborska: Cat in an Empty Apertment

Dying--you wouldn't do that to a cat. 
For what is a cat to do 
in an empty apartment? 
Climb up the walls? 
Brush up against the furniture? 
Nothing here seems changed, 
and yet something has changed. 
Nothing has been moved, 
and yet there's more room. 
And in the evenings the lamp is not on. 

One hears footsteps on the stairs,
but they're not the same.
Neither is the hand
that puts a fish on the plate.

Something here isn't starting
at its usual time.
Something here isn't happening
as it should.
Somebody has been here and has been,
and then has suddenly disappeared
and now is stubbornly absent.

All the closets have been scanned
and all the shelves run through.
Slipping under the carpet and checking came to nothing.
The rule has even been broken and all the papers scattered.
What else is there to do?
Sleep and wait.

Just let him come back,
let him show up.
Then he'll find out
that you don't do that to a cat.
Going toward him
faking reluctance,
slowly,
on very offended paws.
And no jumping, purring at first. 

(translation: 

Joanna Maria Trz)