Do you remember the poem "Nothing Twice" I read in the hotel lobby during our Reading Poetry Aloud Evening? The poet, Wislawa Szymborska, who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996 for " the poetry which, with its ironical precision, allows the historical and biological context manifest itself in parts of human existence", died last night in her sleep in Cracow, Poland, at the age of 89, surrounded by people who loved her. Beautiful death, I think, one that must be deserved...
But still, there are people left behind, bereaved, in a sense. That's why I decided to share with you one of my most favorite poems of her:
A Cat in an Empty Apartment
Die? One does not do that to a cat.
Because what's a cat to do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls.
Caress against the furniture.
It seems that nothing has changed here,
but yet things are different.
Nothing appears to have been relocated,
yet everything has been shuffled about.
The lamp no longer burns in the evenings.
Footsteps can be heard on the stairway,
but they're not the ones.
The hand which puts the fish on the platter
is not the same one which used to do it.
Something here does not begin
at its usual time.
Something does not happen quite
as it should
Here someone was and was,
then suddenly disappeared
and now is stubbornly absent.
All the closets were peered into.
The shelves were walked through.
The rug was lifted and examined.
Even the rule about not scattering
papers was violated.
What more is to be done?
Sleep and wait.
Let him return,
at least make a token appearance.
Then he'll learn
that one shouldn't treat a cat like this.
He will be approached
as though unwillingly,
slowly,
on very offended paws.
With no spontaneous leaps or squeals at first.
We are not the only ones who suffer when we lose a beloved pet. They truly miss us! This poem reminded me of a movie starring Richard Gere and a dog. Every day, at 5 p.m. the dog would be waiting for its master outside the train station. One day, the master died at work, and never returned back. The dog waited and waited, and returned the day after, and the day after, until summer became fall; and fall, spring; and spring gave way to winter... Every day, until the dog aged, it would be at the train station at 5 p.m. It's a very moving picture. Just as the poem.
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