Going Home
April 11, 2006
Wislawa Szymborska
Listen (to Black Mamba read)
He came home. Said nothing.
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.
He lay down fully dressed.
Pulled the blanket over his head.
Tucked up his knees.
He’s nearly forty, but not at the moment.
He exists just as he did inside his mother’s womb,
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.
Tomorrow he’ll give a lecture
on homeostasis in metagalactic cosmonautics.
For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.
Retreating back to your mother’s womb - life can make you crave that space, at times. All the things you have done and achieved just can’t buy you, what you are dying for. There is just not enough homeostasis in the metagalaxy to comfort you. But then you wake up, walk the walk, talk the talk and the you everyone knows - is just fine.
note: Oh, Szymborska! again? you ask. :) Long answer : We like, we post :)
[blackmamba]
Entry Filed under: Black Mamba, Clare Cavanagh, English, Polish, Stanislaw Baranczak, Wislawa Szymborska. .
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1.
Ravi Kopra | December 14, 2007 at 4:42 am
Another rendering -
He came home. Said nothing.
Something had gone wrong, surely.
He lay down in his clothes.
His head under the blanket,
Knees drawn in.
He’s fortyish, but not at this moment.
He exists as if in his mother’s womb
sheltered in darkness within seven skins.
Tomorrow he’ll lecture on the
homeostasis of megagalacic cosmonautics.
For now he’s curled up, asleep.