Wednesday, January 31, 2007

323. ∏ - Wislawa Szymborska

.
deserves our full admiration
three point one four one.
All its following digits are also non-recurring,
five nine two because it never ends.
It cannot be grasped six five three five at a glance,
eight nine in a calculus
seven nine in imagination,
or even three two three eight, in a conceit that is, a comparison
Four six with anything else
two six four three in the world
The longest snake on earth breaks off after several metres.
Likewise, though at greater length, do fabled snakes.
The series comprising
doesn’t stop at the edge of the sheet,
it can stretch across the table, through the air,
through the wall, leaf, bird’s nest, clouds, straight to heaven,
through all the heavens’ chasms and distensions.
How short, how mouse-like, is the comet’s tail!
How frail a star’s ray, that it bends in any bit of space!
Meanwhile, two three fifteen, three hundred nineteen
my telephone number the size of your shirt
the year nineteen hundred and seventy three sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five pennies
the waist measurement two fingers a charade a code
in which singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest
and please be calm
and also heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not no, certainly not,
she’s still on with her passable five
above above-average eight
the not-final seven
urging, yes, urging a sluggish eternity
to persevere.

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