Gems 10.5

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I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

“I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.”

Wisława Szymborska

“Szymborska was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality”. -Wikipedia

Consolation

Darwin.

They say he read novels to relax,

But only certain kinds:

nothing that ended unhappily.

If anything like that turned up,

enraged, he flung the book into the fire.

True or not,

I’m ready to believe it.

Scanning in his mind so many times and places,

he’d had enough of dying species,

the triumphs of the strong over the weak,

the endless struggles to survive,

all doomed sooner or later.

He’d earned the right to happy endings,

at least in fiction

with its diminutions.

Hence the indispensable

silver lining,

the lovers reunited, the families reconciled,

the doubts dispelled, fidelity rewarded,

fortunes regained, treasures uncovered,

stiff-necked neighbors mending their ways,

good names restored, greed daunted,

old maids married off to worthy parsons,

troublemakers banished to other hemispheres,

forgers of documents tossed down the stairs,

seducers scurrying to the altar,

orphans sheltered, widows comforted,

pride humbled, wounds healed over,

prodigal sons summoned home,

cups of sorrow thrown into the ocean,

hankies drenched with tears of reconciliation,

general merriment and celebration,

and the dog Fido,

gone astray in the first chapter,

turns up barking gladly

in the last.

Source: Poetry (April 2006) via Poetry Foundation

BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA
TRANSLATED BY CLARE CAVANAGH

The weekend is here. I have been sick, and so the videos will come, anon. Is it just me, or does 2010 seem like the “good old days”? The world in 2024 feels like another (rather dark) dimension. I’m glad you’ve traveled here with me. We’ll keep each other company (and at least semi-sane). Deal? I hope we have a lovely weekend.

♥

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