{"id":182,"date":"2018-11-01T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T11:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/01\/a-poem-for-thursday-4\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T23:02:39","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T23:02:39","slug":"a-poem-for-thursday-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/01\/a-poem-for-thursday-4\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for a Thursday #4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AdPhoto by\u00a0Siska Vrijburg<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0<\/span>Unsplash<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Wislawa Szymborska was a Polish poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996 among many other honors. An article in The New York Times described her as living “a life of quiet amazement, reflected in poems that are both plain-spoken and luminous.” This poem, a lovely description of the joy of writing, is a wonderful example of the imagination and deft touch evident in\u00a0 so much of her work.<\/p>\n

Why does this written doe bound these written woods?
\nFor a drink of written water from a spring
\nwhose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
\nWhy does she lift her head; does she hear something?
\nPerched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
\nshe pricks up her ears beneath my fingertip.
\nSilence – this word also rustles across the page
\nand parts the boughs
\nthat have sprouted from the word ‘woods.’<\/p>\n

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
\nare letters up to no good,
\nclutches of clauses so subordinate
\nthey’ll never let her get away.<\/p>\n

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
\nof hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
\nprepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
\nsurround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.<\/p>\n

They forget that what’s here isn’t life.
\nOther laws, black on white, obtain.
\nThe twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
\nand will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
\nfull of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
\nNot a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
\nWithout my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
\nnot a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop.<\/p>\n

Is there then a\u00a0world
\nwhere I rule absolutely on fate?
\nA time I bind with chains of signs?
\nAn existence become endless at my bidding?<\/p>\n

The joy of writing.
\nThe power of preserving.
\nRevenge\u00a0of a mortal hand.<\/p>\n

The Joy of Writing
\nWislawa Szymborska<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AdPhoto by\u00a0Siska Vrijburg\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash Wislawa Szymborska was a Polish poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996 among many other honors. An article in The New York Times described her as living “a life of quiet amazement, reflected in poems that are both plain-spoken and luminous.” This poem, a lovely description of the joy of writing, is a wonderful example of the imagination and deft touch evident in\u00a0 so much of her work. Why does this written doe bound these written woods? For a drink of written water from a spring whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle? Why does she lift her head; does she hear something? Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth, she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertip. Silence – this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word ‘woods.’ Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page, are letters up to no good, clutches of clauses so subordinate they’ll never let her get away. Each drop of ink contains a fair supply of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights, prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment, surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns. They forget that what’s here isn’t life. Other laws, black on white, obtain. The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say, and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities, full of bullets stopped in mid-flight. Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so. Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall, not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop. Is there then a\u00a0world where I rule absolutely on fate? A time I bind with chains of signs? An existence become endless at my bidding? The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge\u00a0of a mortal hand. The Joy of Writing Wislawa Szymborska<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem-for-a-thursday"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2645,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/2645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}