Open borders are natural and possible in a more civilized world. #WislawaSzymborska #Poetry #Borders #Immigration #Civilization #Humanity #Empathy
PSALM* by Wislawa Szymborska, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Oh, the leaky boundaries of man-made states!
How many clouds float past them with impunity; how much desert sand shifts from one land to another; how many mountain pebbles tumble onto foreign soil in provocative hops!
Need I mention every single bird that flies in the face of frontiers or alights on the roadblock at the border?
A humble robin—still, its tail resides abroad
while its beak stays home. If that weren't enough, it won't stop bobbing!
Among innumerable insects, I'll single out only the ant between the border guard's left and right boots blithely ignoring the questions "Where from?" and "Where to?"
Oh, to register in detail, at a glance, the chaos prevailing on every continent!
Isn't that a privet on the far bank
smuggling its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?
And who but the octopus, with impudent long arms, would disrupt the sacred bounds of territorial waters?
And how can we talk of order overall when the very placement of the stars leaves us doubting just what shines for whom?
Not to speak of the fog's reprehensible drifting!
And dust blowing all over the steppes as if they hadn't been partitioned
And the voices coasting on obliging airwaves, that conspiratorial squeaking, those indecipherable mutters.
Only what is human can truly be foreign.
The rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.
*Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh and excerpted from the book, Wislawa Szymborska, Poems New and Collected 1957-1997.
Joseph
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2026-01-24 16:42:48 UTC
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2026-01-24 16:42:48 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Open borders are natural and possible in a more civilized world. #WislawaSzymborska #Poetry #Borders #Immigration #Civilization #Humanity #Empathy \n\nPSALM* by Wislawa Szymborska, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature.\n\nOh, the leaky boundaries of man-made states!\nHow many clouds float past them with impunity; how much desert sand shifts from one land to another; how many mountain pebbles tumble onto foreign soil in provocative hops!\n\nNeed I mention every single bird that flies in the face of frontiers or alights on the roadblock at the border?\nA humble robin—still, its tail resides abroad\nwhile its beak stays home. If that weren't enough, it won't stop bobbing!\n\nAmong innumerable insects, I'll single out only the ant between the border guard's left and right boots blithely ignoring the questions \"Where from?\" and \"Where to?\"\n\nOh, to register in detail, at a glance, the chaos prevailing on every continent!\nIsn't that a privet on the far bank\nsmuggling its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?\nAnd who but the octopus, with impudent long arms, would disrupt the sacred bounds of territorial waters?\n\nAnd how can we talk of order overall when the very placement of the stars leaves us doubting just what shines for whom?\n\nNot to speak of the fog's reprehensible drifting!\nAnd dust blowing all over the steppes as if they hadn't been partitioned\nAnd the voices coasting on obliging airwaves, that conspiratorial squeaking, those indecipherable mutters.\n\nOnly what is human can truly be foreign.\nThe rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.\n\n*Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh and excerpted from the book, Wislawa Szymborska, Poems New and Collected 1957-1997.",
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