Water

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drop of water on my hand

is drawn from the Ganges and the Nile,

from the sky-ascending hoar on a seal’s whisker,

from broken jars in the cities of Ys and Tyre.

On my index-finger

the Caspian Sea is an open sea

and the Pacific meekly drains into the Rudawa,

the very river that sailed in a cloud over Paris

in the year seventeen-hundred-and-sixty-four

on the seventh of May at three in the morning.

There aren’t enough lips to utter

Your fleeting names, Oh water!

I would need to name you in every tongue,

voicing together every single vowel

and simultaneously keep mum – for the benefit

of the lake still awaiting a name,

with no place on earth – and for

the heavenly star reflected in it.

Someone’s been drowning, someone dying has been calling you.

That was long ago and happened yesterday.

You’ve dowsed homes, you’ve snatched them

Like trees, snatched forests like cities.

You were present in baptismal fonts and courtesans’ baths.

In kisses, in shrouds.

Biting stones, feeding rainbows.

In the sweat and dew of pyramids and lilacs.

How light a drop of rain,

How gently the world touches me.

Wherever, whenever, whatever took place

is recorded on the waters of Babel.

Wislawa Szymborska