Some Like Poetry

Some -
that means not all.
Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting school, where one must,
and 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.

--- Wislawa Szymborska
(translated from Polish by Joanna Trzeciak.) Polish original


Martin Szummer, szummer.NOSPAM@media.mit.edu (remove .NOSPAM suffix before sending)
Last modified: Sun Apr 19 22:31:49 EDT 1998