A Few Words on the Soul
Wislawa Szymborska
We have a soul at
times.
No one’s got it
non-stop,
for keeps.
Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.
Sometimes
it will settle for
awhile
only in childhood’s
fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in
astonishment
that we are old.
It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes
that pinch.
It usually steps out
whenever meat needs
chopping
or forms have to be
filled.
For every thousand
conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers
silence.
Just when our body goes
from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.
It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing
us in crowds,
our hustling for a
dubious advantage
and creaky machinations
make it sick.
Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different
feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are
joined.
We can count on it
when we’re sure of
nothing
and curious about
everything.
Among the material
objects
it favors clocks with
pendulums
and mirrors, which keep
on working
even when no one is
looking.
It won’t say where it
comes from
or when it’s taking off
again,
though it’s clearly
expecting such questions.
We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.
“Contemporary poets are skeptical and
suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves … in our clamorous
times it’s much easier to acknowledge your faults, at least if they’re
attractively packaged, than to recognize your own merits, since these are
hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself.” Wislawa Szymborsk
Source: http://www.poetseers.org/nobel-prize-for-literature/wislawa-szymborska/library/a-few-words-on-the-soul/
Stephanie Doty
Women’s Issues Matter
April 8, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
