We have been spared from the greatest wrath of the storms that have hit in the past few weeks. Robert is struggling to keep the basement dry, but that is tiny when compared to the damage others have had to face. As I looked out the window at our backyard yesterday I noticed that there was just a little more sky to see. Unfortunately the tree that was covering up the sky is now an amputee.
On an entirely different note I have a poem to share. This will not be the last you hear of this poet.
The End and the Beginning
By Wisława Szymborska
After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.
Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.
Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.
Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.
No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.
The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.
Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.
From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.
Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.
READ TO ME
3 weeks ago
6 comments:
sad to hear that storm has caused some damage.
Any very nice poem. u r multi - talented. Yeah i m waiting more from u.
Given the poet's name, I imagine he's well informed and pretty harmed by the nature of 'Us' as a species.
Send us more of his this way, Hannah.
I'm sorry that you lost some of your tree. Lost tree's, or any part of them, just devastate me. If you look at my blog, you'll see that your area isn't the only one in mourning.
Storms will come and go eh? It is the nature of weather. It is good to not be so sadly affected but it lies to them thus to do the work of recovery, may you find the enduring strength. What state are you in Noisy?
Szymborska, as a Nobel prize winner for literature, will endure long after her passing.
I loved this poem, its style and its hard and clipped beat.
As I read it my mind kept wandering to the thought that it would be so much easier if we would simply reject war as a means of accomplishing objectives of the state and barring that maybe we should clean up (or out) as we go along.
There might be less skeletons in the cornfield if we did.
Thanks for the thoughts Smile(y).
Wow!! Big branch fall. You are lucky it did not hit your house.
I just heard the weather for your side of the world and it is not good. buckle down hatches, matey.
well i hear a storm coming my way. beautiful poem. i could relate having been born in the caribbean where we get hurricanes every year.
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