What is love?
Is love nothing but a dream as Szymborska’s A Dream?
It touches you deeply that makes you tear up and there is no way you can escape
when it hits you.
Love at first sight. Is it possible?
Does love happen when you make it happen?
You couldn't help but think after reading Love at
First Sight that sometimes there is such a thing as destiny, However, I don't believe in predestination. Most people are mentally stupefied when they fall in
love. They worry about their uncertain relationship in the future which is an
unknown for everyone. Therefore, they tend to claim that it’s their destiny. Maybe
the poem knows more about love than us.
Love
at First Sight
by Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Joanna Trzeciak
They are sure
that a sudden feeling united them.
Beautiful is such certainty,
but uncertainty more beautiful.
They think, that as they didn't know each other earlier,
nothing ever happened between them.
But what would they say: those streets, stairways, and corridors
where they could have been passing each other for a long time?
I would like to ask them,
don't you remember—
maybe face to face once
in a revolving door?
an "excuse me" in a tight crowd?
a "wrong number" heard over the phone?
—but I know their answer.
No, they don't remember.
They would be quite surprised,
that for a long time
chance had been toying with them.
Not altogether ready
to turn into their fate,
it would draw them together, pull them apart,
cut them off on their path,
and, swallowing a giggle,
leap to the side.
There were signs, signals,
so what they were unreadable.
Maybe three years ago
or last Tuesday
some leaf flew
from arm to arm?
Something got lost and then got picked up.
Who knows whether it wasn't even a ball
in some childhood thicket?
There were doorknobs and doorbells,
where touch lay on touch
beforehand.
Suitcases next to one another in the baggage check.
Maybe one night the same dream,
blurred upon awakening.
Every beginning, after all,
is nothing but a sequel,
and the book of events
is always open in the middle.
by Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Joanna Trzeciak
They are sure
that a sudden feeling united them.
Beautiful is such certainty,
but uncertainty more beautiful.
They think, that as they didn't know each other earlier,
nothing ever happened between them.
But what would they say: those streets, stairways, and corridors
where they could have been passing each other for a long time?
I would like to ask them,
don't you remember—
maybe face to face once
in a revolving door?
an "excuse me" in a tight crowd?
a "wrong number" heard over the phone?
—but I know their answer.
No, they don't remember.
They would be quite surprised,
that for a long time
chance had been toying with them.
Not altogether ready
to turn into their fate,
it would draw them together, pull them apart,
cut them off on their path,
and, swallowing a giggle,
leap to the side.
There were signs, signals,
so what they were unreadable.
Maybe three years ago
or last Tuesday
some leaf flew
from arm to arm?
Something got lost and then got picked up.
Who knows whether it wasn't even a ball
in some childhood thicket?
There were doorknobs and doorbells,
where touch lay on touch
beforehand.
Suitcases next to one another in the baggage check.
Maybe one night the same dream,
blurred upon awakening.
Every beginning, after all,
is nothing but a sequel,
and the book of events
is always open in the middle.
love [lʌv]
n., v. loved, lov•ing. n.
n., v. loved, lov•ing. n.
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person, esp. when based on sexual attraction.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection.
3. a person toward whom love is felt.
4. a love affair.
5. sexual activity.
6. (cap.) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.
7. affectionate concern for the well-being of others: love of one's neighbor.
8. a strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking: a love of books.
9. the object of such liking or enthusiasm: The theater was her great love.
10. the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God.
11. a score of zero, as in tennis.
v.t.
12. to have love or affection for.
13. to have a strong liking for: to love music.
14. to need or require: Plants love sunlight.
15. to embrace and kiss as a lover.
16. to have sexual intercourse with.
v.i.
17. to feel the emotion of love.
Idioms:
1. in love (with), infused with or feeling deep affection or passion (for); enamored (of).
2. make love,
a. to have sexual relations.
b. to neck; pet.
c. to court; woo.
[before 900; Middle English lov(i)en, Old English lufian, c. Old Saxon, Old High German lubōn, Old Norse lofa]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights
I've always treasured
reading poetry even though I don't understand it most of the time. I love the
beauty of the words and the rhyming which allows my imagination to run wild. I
was reading A Dream by Szymborska
last night. The words are so beautiful that I read it out loud on the patio
with my heart filled with joy at first. What is it about?
A fantastic dream?
Was it a memory, an
illusion or the anticipation of a marriage?
Someone died?
I read it again.
Um… It’s a dream.
I read it again.
My tears flowing down
my cheeks…
A
Dream
Wislawa Szymborska, translated by Joanna Trzeciak
My dead-in-battle, my turned-to-ashes, my earth,
taking the shape he has in the photograph:
leaf's shadow on his face, seashell in hand,
he marches unto my dream.
He wanders through darkness frozen since never,
through emptiness opened toward him for always,
through seven times seven times seven silences.
He appears on the inner side of my eyelids,
in the one and only world accessible to him.
His shot-through heart is beating.
A primordial wind gusts from his hair.
A meadow springs up between us.
The sky flies in with clouds and birds,
mountains quietly explode on the horizon
and the river flows down in search of the sea.
One can see so far, so far,
that day and night become simultaneous
and all the seasons are experienced at once.
The moon opens up its four-phased fan,
snowflakes swirl along with butterflies
and fruit falls from a blossoming tree.
We come toward each other. I don't know whether we're in tears
or whether we're smiling. One more step
and we will listen to your seashell,
what a sound, like thousands of orchestras,
what a wedding march.
Wislawa Szymborska, translated by Joanna Trzeciak
My dead-in-battle, my turned-to-ashes, my earth,
taking the shape he has in the photograph:
leaf's shadow on his face, seashell in hand,
he marches unto my dream.
He wanders through darkness frozen since never,
through emptiness opened toward him for always,
through seven times seven times seven silences.
He appears on the inner side of my eyelids,
in the one and only world accessible to him.
His shot-through heart is beating.
A primordial wind gusts from his hair.
A meadow springs up between us.
The sky flies in with clouds and birds,
mountains quietly explode on the horizon
and the river flows down in search of the sea.
One can see so far, so far,
that day and night become simultaneous
and all the seasons are experienced at once.
The moon opens up its four-phased fan,
snowflakes swirl along with butterflies
and fruit falls from a blossoming tree.
We come toward each other. I don't know whether we're in tears
or whether we're smiling. One more step
and we will listen to your seashell,
what a sound, like thousands of orchestras,
what a wedding march.
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