Photograph from September 11

Photograph from September 11 

BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA

TRANSLATED BY CLARE CAVANAGH

They jumped from the burning floors—

one, two, a few more,

higher, lower.

 

The photograph halted them in life,

and now keeps them

above the earth toward the earth.

 

Each is still complete,

with a particular face

and blood well hidden.

 

There’s enough time

for hair to come loose,

for keys and coins

to fall from pockets.

 

They’re still within the air’s reach,

within the compass of places

that have just now opened.

 

I can do only two things for them—

describe this flight

and not add a last line.

Audio recording:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/play/74759


About the author

(Excerpt from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wisaawa-szymborska)

Well-known in her native Poland, Wisława Szymborska [1923 – 2012] received international recognition when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. In awarding the prize, the Academy praised her “poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.” Collections of her poems that have been translated into English include People on a Bridge (1990), View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems (1995), Miracle Fair (2001), and Monologue of a Dog (2005).

Readers of Szymborska’s poetry have often noted its wit, irony, and deceptive simplicity. Her poetry examines domestic details and occasions, playing these against the backdrop of history. In the poem “The End and the Beginning,” Szymborska writes, “After every war / someone’s got to tidy up.”

Szymborska lived most of her life in Krakow; she studied Polish literature and society at Jagiellonian University and worked as an editor and columnist. A selection of her reviews was published in English under the title Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces (2002). She received the Polish PEN Club prize, the Goethe Prize, and the Herder Prize.

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