Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

    — Wisława Szymborska, from “Love at First Sight”, translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

    —

Wisława Szymborska, from “Could Have”, trans. Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

[A miracle, just take a look around:
the world is everywhere.]

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:
the unthinkable
is thinkable.

    — Wisława Szymborska, from “A Miracle”

[I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me,
since I am my own obstacle.]
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and then labor to make them light.

    — Wisława Szymborska, from “Under a Certain Little Star”, translated by Joanna Trzeciak

[Here the heavy heart, there non omnis moriar—
just three little words, like a flight’s three feathers.

The abyss doesn’t divide us.]
The abyss surrounds us.

    —

Wisława Szymborska, from “Autotomy”, translated by S. Barańczak and C. Cavanagh, in Poems New and Collected

The poet Wisława Szymborska died on the 1st February 2012 at the age of 88.

I can’t speak for other –
for me this is misery and happiness enough:

just this sleepy backwater
where even the stars have time to burn
while winking at us
unintentionally.

    — Wisława Szymborska, from “The Ball”(translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Claire Cavanagh)