Wisława Szymborska / Consolation

Consolation

By 

Wisława Szymborska

TRANSLATED BY CLARE CAVANAGH

Darwin. 

They say he read novels to relax, 

But only certain kinds: 

nothing that ended unhappily. 

If anything like that turned up, 

enraged, he flung the book into the fire. 

True or not, 

I’m ready to believe it. 

Scanning in his mind so many times and places, 

he’d had enough of dying species, 

the triumphs of the strong over the weak, 

the endless struggles to survive, 

all doomed sooner or later. 

He’d earned the right to happy endings, 

at least in fiction 

with its diminutions. 

Hence the indispensable 

silver lining, 

the lovers reunited, the families reconciled, 

the doubts dispelled, fidelity rewarded, 

fortunes regained, treasures uncovered, 

stiff-necked neighbors mending their ways, 

good names restored, greed daunted, 

old maids married off to worthy parsons, 

troublemakers banished to other hemispheres, 

forgers of documents tossed down the stairs, 

seducers scurrying to the altar, 

orphans sheltered, widows comforted, 

pride humbled, wounds healed over, 

prodigal sons summoned home, 

cups of sorrow thrown into the ocean, 

hankies drenched with tears of reconciliation, 

general merriment and celebration, 

and the dog Fido, 

gone astray in the first chapter, 

turns up barking gladly 

in the last.

Wisława Szymborska / The End and the Beginning

Wisława Szymborska / The End and the Beginning

The End and the Beginning 

By 

Wisława Szymborska
TRANSLATED BY JOANNA TRZECIAK

Wisława Szymborska / Fin y principio

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten theselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road,

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass.

Someone has to get mired

in scum and ashes,

sofa springs,

splintered glass,

and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall.

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,

and takes years.

All the cameras have left

for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand, 

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby

starting to mill about

who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew

what was going on here

must make way for

those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds.