Hello X,
Spare a thought for this beautiful poem. I don’t want to tell you what to think. That is for you to decide. And when you have, share it with those you can. Creation after destruction is a precious lesson. It is ours for the taking, to avoid the former in the first place.
The End and the Beginning
By Wisława Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak
After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.
Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.
Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.
Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.
We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.
Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.
From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.
Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.
In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.
It is my privilege to teach. And yours, to learn.
It takes peace to know and peace to grow.
Peace doesn’t have to be a privilege. If allowed to exist, it does outlive us all.
And replaces what has been lost.
Peace,
Prof. Gyaan.
(The SHOUT! Network claims no right to this thought-provoking poem.)
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