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Thursday, June 28, 2012

She is one up on death

by Jagannath Rao Adukuri

Yesterday the poet Szymborska died in sleep
Of heavily smoked lungs and yellowed age.
Death's possibilities are immense and other.

Upstairs might not have had enough space
And the moment was not for death to knock.
Like death was not strong enough to swat a fly
In a death be not proud moment of triumph,
When she was immortal, in the very moment.

The business of dying in sleep makes it hard
To pinpoint the very moment of death's victory.
Her immortality remains an open-ended matter.

(Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska died at her home in Krakow on February 1, 2012. She was 88 years old. According to a New York Times obituary “Szymborska, a heavy smoker, died in her sleep of lung cancer… surrounded by relatives and friends.”

"Possibilities" is one of her poems. Another of her poems, "On death, without exaggeration" is being referred to here)

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