Poet's Choice
In the news, reports have appeared of a perhaps mythical, possibly one-eyed, furry creature: the Mapinguary. Whether the man-eating creature, said to resemble a giant sloth, exists or not, it reveals something about the human need to imagine a being profoundly other than ourselves that yet somehow reflects (or consumes) US. Here is a poem by Wislawa Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh:
NOTES FROM A NONEXISTENT HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION
So these are the Himalayas.
Mountains racing to the moon.
The moment of their start recorded
on the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.
Holes punched in a desert of clouds.
Thrust into nothing.
Echo--a white mute.
Quiet.
Yeti, down there we've got Wednesday,
bread and alphabets.
Two times two is four.
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