The author of this poem, Wislawa Szymborska is Polish. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996.
I find myself returning to poetry more these days. It is one of the things that I do when I need to find, amidst the learning that I am in, the ground underneath my feet. I return to beauty, sometimes starting in others, to remember a beauty that I am too.
I am drawn to this poem for the simple references to life experiences, followed by the last line, the simple experience of “not knowing.” That too, is part of life, despite my efforts and others to break it down into knowing.
A Note
Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;
to tell pain
from everything it’s not;
to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to see the least of all possible mistakes.
An extraordinary chance
to remember a moment,
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;
and if only once
to stumble on a stone,
end up drenched in one downpour or another,
mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.