Wislawa Szymborska

e poet & Nobel Laureate whose works have inspired Jimmy Liao:

The Three Oddest Words
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

- Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

e poem that inspired Jimmy Liao's 《向左走．向右走》
Separate Ways, which in turn inspired e movie Turn Left Turn Right:

Love at First Sight
They both thought
that a sudden feeling had united them
This certainty is beautiful,
Even more beautiful than uncertainty.

They thought they didn't know each other,
nothing had ever happened between them,
These streets, these stairs, this corridors,
Where they could have met so long ago?

I would like to ask them,
if they can remember -
perhaps in a revolving door
face to face one day?
A "sorry" in the crowd?
"Wrong number" on the 'phone?
- but I know the answer.
No, they don't remember.

How surprised they would be
For such a long time already
Fate has been playing with them.

Not quite yet ready
to change into destiny,
which brings them nearer and yet further,
cutting their path
and stifling a laugh,
escaping ever further;
There were signs, indications,
undecipherable, what does it matter.
Three years ago, perhaps
or even last Tuesday,
this leaf flying
from one shoulder to another?
Something lost and gathered.
Who knows, perhaps a ball already
in the bushes, in childhood?

There were handles, door bells,
where, on the trace of a hand,
another hand was placed;
suitcases next to one another in the
left luggage.
And maybe one night the same dream
forgotten on walking;

But every beginning
is only a continuation
and the book of fate is
always open in the middle.

by Wislawa Szymborska
Translation from Polish by Roman Gren
Translation from French by Sarah Hardenberg

if you read e book & carefully admire e illustrations, you will keep noticing a man carrying a fishbowl with his fish with a smile appearing in most pictures of crowds....they are e main characters from another story of Jimmy's, 《微笑的鱼》 A Fish With A Smile =) e big fat rabbit that appears by e girl's window at night & e rest of e rabbits in guy's apartment & hers are from 《森林里的秘密》 Secrets In e Forest.

[ filed under: art1 ]