"Water" by Polish Nobel winning poet, Wislawa Szymborska

 Club member Polly read a poem as our inspirational moment a few weeks ago. Many of you wanted to see it, so it's repeated below. Thank's Polly!

"Water"

A drop of water fell on my hand,
drawn from the Ganges and the Nile,

from hoarfrost ascended to heaven from a seal’s whiskers, 
from jugs broken in the cities of Ys and Tyre.

On my index finger
the Caspian Sea isn’t landlocked,

and the Pacific is the Rudawa’s meek tributary, 
the same stream that floated in a little cloud over Paris

in the year seven hundred and sixty-four
on the seventh of May at 3:00 a.m.

There are not enough mouths to utter
all your names, O water.

I would have to name you in every tongue,
pronouncing all the vowels at once

while also keeping silent - for the sake of the lake
that still goes unnamed.

Someone was drowning, someone dying was
calling out for you. Long ago, yesterday.

You saved houses from fire, you have carried off
houses and trees, forests and towns alike.

You’ve been in christening fonts and courtesans’ baths
in coffins and kisses.

Gnawing at stone, feeding rainbows.
In the sweat and the dew of pyramids and lilacs.

How light the raindrop’s contents are.
How gently the world touches me.

Whenever, wherever, whatever has happened