Free Map by Wisława Szymborska

underwear, slacks, slips, socks,
putting, hanging, tossing them across
the backs of chairs, the wings of metal screens;
for now, the doctor says, it’s not too bad,
you may get dressed, get rested up, get out of town,
take one in case, at bedtime, after lunch,
show up in a couple of months, next spring, next year;
you see, and you thought, and we were afraid that,
and he imagined, and you all believed;
it’s time to tie, to fasten with shaking hands
shoelaces, buckles, velcro, zippers, snaps,
belts, buttons, cuff links, collars, neckties, clasps
and to pull out of handbags, pockets, sleeves
a crumpled, dotted, flowered, checkered scarf
whose usefulness has suddenly been prolonged.

On Death, Without Exaggeration
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It can’t take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.
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In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.
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It can’t even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.
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Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.
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Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!
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Sometimes it isn’t strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.
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All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.
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Ill will won’t help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d’état
is so far not enough.
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Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies’ skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees far away.
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Whoever claims that it’s omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it’s not.
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There’s no life
that couldn’t be immortal
if only for a moment.
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Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.
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In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you’ve come
can’t be undone.

The Great Man’s House
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The marble tells us in golden syllables:
Here the great man lived, and worked, and died.
Here are the garden paths where he personally scattered the gravel.
Here’s the bench—don’t touch—he hewed the stone himself.
And here—watch the steps—we enter the house.
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He managed to come into the world at what was still a fitting time.
All that was to pass passed in this house.
Not in housing projects,
not in furnished but empty quarters,
among unknown neighbors,
on fifteenth floors
that student field trips rarely reach.
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In this room he thought,
in this alcove he slept,
and here he entertained his guests.
Portraits, armchair, desk, pipe, globe,
flute, well-worn carpet, glassed-in porch.
Here he exchanged bows with the tailor and shoemaker
who made his coats and boots to order.
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It’s not the same as photographs in boxes,
dried-out ballpoint pens in plastic cups,
store-bought clothes in store-bought closets,
a window that looks out on clouds, not passersby.
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Was he happy? Sad?
That’s not the point.
He still made confessions in letters
without thinking they’d be opened en route.
He still kept a careful, candid diary
knowing it wouldn’t be seized in a search.
The thing that most frightened him was a comet’s flight.
The world’s doom lay then in God’s hands alone.
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He was lucky enough to die not in a hospital,
not behind some white, anonymous screen.
There was still someone there at his bedside to memorize
his mumbled words.
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As if he had been given
a reusable life:
he sent out books to be bound,
he didn’t strike the names of the dead from his ledgers.
And the trees that he planted in the garden by his house
still grew for him as
juglans