I recently checked out a book of poetry by the Nobel Prize winning Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska. I'm quite smitten.
Here's a lovely one that speaks deeply to me about what poetry --to say it more broadly-- art-- to say it more broadly again--beauty serves for so many of us.
I also have to say, I just love the simplicity and almost humility inherent in her language. This is the kind of writing my soul wants to clutch on again.
Some like poetry
Some--
that means not all.
Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting the schools, where one must,
and the poets themselves, there will be perhaps two in a thousand.
Like--
but one also likes chicken noodle soup,
one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an old scarf,
one likes to prove one's point,
one likes to pet a dog.
Poetry--
but what sort of thing is poetry?
More than one shaky answer
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,
as to a saving bannister.
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2 comments:
I love that last line. She doesn't understand the meaning of "poetry" but she takes it on faith. She knows it is something sturdy and some element of her salvation is in it. This is an excellent example of how art can express faith and lead us to something deeper than the poem itself. All the mysteries of our faith are just like that - we clutch to them with only the understanding that we must and they are our sure strength and ultimate hope.
Thanks, Valerie.
" All the mysteries of our faith are just like that - we clutch to them with only the understanding that we must "
That's so true...I am so thankful for the freedom of mystery --
to be able not to know, but to clutch.
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