Foraminifera
- Foraminifera
Well then, let's take the Foraminifera.They lived, since they were, and were, since they lived.They did what they could since they were able.In the plural since the plural,although each one on its own,in its own, since in its ownsmall limestone shell.Time summarized them laterin layers, since layers,without going into details,since there's pity in the details.And so I have before metwo views in one: [End Page 485] a mournful cemetery madeof tiny eternal restsor, rising from the sea,the azure sea, brilliant white cliffs,cliffs that are here because they are. [End Page 486]
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her many other honors include the Goethe Prize, the Herder Prize, and the Polish PEN Club Prize. Collections of her poems translated into English include People on a Bridge; View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems; and Monologue of a Dog. A selection of her reviews was published in English under the title Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces.
Clare Cavanagh, Frances Hooper professor in the arts and humanities at Northwestern University, is the author of Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West, for which she received the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.
