Today begins the last quarter of the year, an exciting quarter even with, or perhaps because of continuing events. Because of smoke in the air, the moon last night was orange like a pumpkin, a sign of fall.
Tears come as I intake this poem by Wislawa Szymborska. The more we’re bombarded with “news” filled with lies, the more I go to poetry to survive.
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?
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
(Map – collected and last poems, translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak, edited by Clare Cavanagh)