S5 Ep 6: Some People Like Poetry by Wisława Szymborska

If you are listening to this, you probably enjoy poetry, but then... 

Some people –
that means not everyone.
Not even most of them, only a few.
Not counting school, where you have to,
and poets themselves,
you might end up with something like two per thousand.

Like –
but then, you can like chicken noodle soup,
or compliments, or the color blue,
your old scarf,
your own way,
petting the dog.

Poetry –
but what is poetry anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that
like a redemptive handrail.

Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

(The End and the Beginning, 1993)

Source: The Wislawa Szymborska Foundation