Been thinking on this poem, written by one of my favorite poets. It seems…right. For January. For this January.
Here’s to being mortal.
A Word on Statistics
by Wislawa Szymborska
(translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)
Out of every hundred people,
those who always know better:
fifty-two.
Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.
Ready to help,
if it doesn’t take long:
forty-nine.
Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four — well, maybe five.
Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.
Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.
Those not to be messed with:
four-and-forty.
Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.
Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.
Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.
Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it’s better not to know,
not even approximately.
Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.
Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).
Balled up in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.
Those who are just:
quite a few, thirty-five.
But if it takes effort to understand:
three.
Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.
Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred —
a figure that has never varied yet.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Love it! Maybe it will inspire me to write something today or tomorrow…
You have excellent taste in poetry.
Okay, I’ll be the devil’s advocate: on what, from where does the poet base his numbers?
Am I being too left-brained in reading this? I do love that the poet is Polish.
Yes Mater I think you are being too literal. My take on it: poetry = poetic license. The numbers are to make you think. “Is that right? Could it possibly be so? Where do I fit in the spectrum? If I were writing this as my own, what would I include?”
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Another mater,
mesue
I love it! That was great.
What a great poem.
And Mater, I believe he kept tally on a random day in a random place – he probably wrote it down on the back of his poetic license.
Lovely haiku, Sue, and I hear you, too, Sara.
I do exercise my right brain beyond blogging – fanfic and poetry including haiku have actually rippled forth.
That says a lot, so simply. Mater, maybe he was just drawing on his experience? A neat question to ask, however.
Just because it’s hilarious. The security code on this comment is OPEC. What are the odds?
Szymborska’s compatriot Czeslaw Milosz, maybe the greatest poet, philosopher, thinker of the last 50 years, witnessed and survived horrors and banalities of the modern world. He writes about hope:
Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh.
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up buy the hands of thieves.
Milosz reminds us to keep our eyes open for the strange new flowers of life. Even “when you cannot enter…you’re sure it’s there…”
Be kind to yourself and try to stay calm. There are better days ahead…
It’s not the numbers that hook me here… it’s the categories chosen… capable of admiration without envy. My immediate response is “oh I WISH I could do that!” LMAO!
Harmless alone, turning savage in crowds… frightening, I’ve seen it happen around me… and to me.
Brilliant, I say. Chilling. Brutally honest? Empirically pessimistic. Illogically optimistic. Real. Beautiful.
Thank you for sharing it.
This is fantastic–thanks for sharing.
Szymborska’s a woman–I believe she got a Nobel Prize for literature.
Only three, if it takes effort? I think this blog proves that the number is far higher than that.
XX
This is really provovative, Jenn.
Part of all the rest. Trying to be part of 20-something-odd at most.
I can see why you are drawn to this. It is truly powerful and thought-provoking.
“Hope is with you when you believe”…I like this..
Thanks to Milosz
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Needed this today. Thanks.
Mater, well, you can’t argue with the last one!
I am going to MARRY this poem.
Also, I’m glad to know there are so many other people who are scared of too much stuff.
That left me in a small wash of goosebumps.
Really very lovely. I think many of us have been involved most of of those numbers at one time or another.