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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;">One of the best - so true, so luminous...
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<div>ˇSzymborska Presente!<br>
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<div id="divRpF291288" style="direction: ltr; "><font face="Tahoma" size="2" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Andrew Winer [andreww@ucr.edu]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, February 02, 2012 2:37 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> RezaAslan@yahoo.com; Nalo Hopkinson; Goldberry Long; 'susan straight'; 'Chris Abani'; Michael Jayme; Tom Lutz; Laila Lalami; Juan F Herrera; Christopher Buckley; Michael Ryan Davis; 'Stephen Ellis'; 'Emily Margaret Wells'; 'Ricardo Zamorano'; cwgrad-announcements@lists.ucr.edu;
fatimafmirza@gmail.com; Stephen E Cullenberg; Vorris Nunley; Traise Yamamoto; Perry Link<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Wislawa Szymborska<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dear All,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">One of the modest giants of letters passed from the world yesterday. Here is one of her poems.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Andrew</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">NO TITLE REQUIRED</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">It has come to this: I'm sitting under a tree</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">beside a river</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">on a sunny morning.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">It's an insignificant event</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">and won't go down in history.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">It's not battles and pacts,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">where motives are scrutinized,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">or noteworthy tyrannicides.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">And yet I'm sitting by this river, that's a fact.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">And since I'm here</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">I must have come from somewhere,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">and before that</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">I must have turned up in many other places,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">exactly like the conquerors of nations</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">before setting sail.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">Even a passing moment has its fertile past,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">its Friday before Saturday,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">its May before June.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">Its horizons are no less real</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">than those that a marshal's field glasses might scan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">This tree is a poplar that's been rooted here for years.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">The river is the Raba; it didn't spring up yesterday.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">The path leading through the bushes</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">wasn't beaten last week.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">The wind had to blow the clouds here</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">before it could blow them away.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">And though nothing much is going on nearby,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">the world is no poorer in details for that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">It's just as grounded, just as definite</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">as when migrating races held it captive.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">Conspiracies aren't the only things shrouded in silence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">Retinues of reasons don't trail coronations alone.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">Anniversaries of revolutions may roll around,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">but so do oval pebbles encircling the bay.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">The tapestry of circumstance is intricate and dense.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">Ants stitching in the grass.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">The grass sewn into the ground.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">The pattern of a wave being needled by a twig.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">So it happens that I am and look.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">Above me a white butterfly is fluttering through the air</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">on wings that are its alone,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">and a shadow skims through my hands</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">that is none other than itself, no one else's but its own.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">When I see such things, I'm no longer sure</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">that what's important</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">is more important than what's not.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">~ Wislawa Szymborska ~</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">(Poems New and Collected 1957-1997,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Garamond","serif"">trans. S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh)</span></p>
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