In Memoriam: Two Poems, excerpt

 

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Suffering (Chapter Three)
doesn't insult the body.
Death? It comes in your sleep,
exactly as it should.
When it comes, you'll be dreaming
that you don't need to breathe;
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark,
and it's part of the rhythm
to vanish like a spark.
Only a death like that. A rose
could prick you harder, I suppose;
 you'd feel more terror at the sound
of petals falling to the ground.

Only a world like that. To die
just that much. And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach's fugue, played
for the time being
on a saw. 


–Wislawa Szymborska
Stanislaw Baranczak and
Clare Cavanagh translation
I'm Working On The World

 

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