One of those nights...

One thousand and one reasons why I love Winterson:

"Only crap, senseless hyper-capitalism reduces everything to interchangeable, buy-another-one, substitutes. But real things are whatever they are, and cannot be replaced in the way our simplistic value system pretends.

And love? Love is not confined to human beings; it is cross-species, and it belongs in nature too. We love what we love, and sometimes we are fortunate enough to be loved in return."

**********

THE BALL by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

As long as nothing can be known for sure

(no signals have been picked up yet),

as long as Earth is still unlike
the nearer and more distant planets,

as long as there’s neither hide nor hair
of other grasses graced by other winds,
of other treetops bearing other crowns,
other animals as well-grounded as our own,

as long as only the local echo
has been known to speak in syllables,

as long as we still haven’t heard the word
of better or worse mozarts,
platos, edisons, elsewhere,

as long as our inhuman crimes
are still committed only between humans,

as long as our kindness
is still incomparable,
peerless even in its imperfection,

as long as our heads packed with illusions
still pass for the only heads so packed,

as long as the roofs of our mouths alone
still raise voices to high heavens –

let’s act like very special guests of honour
at the district firemen’s ball,
dance to the beat of the local oompah band
and pretend that it’s the ball
to end all balls.

I can’t speak for other –
for me this is misery and happiness enough:

just this sleepy backwater
where even the stars have time to burn
while winking at us
unintentionally.

**********

AMONG THE MULTITUDES by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.

I could have different
ancestors, after all.
I could have fluttered
from another nest
or crawled bescaled
from another tree.

Nature's wardrobe
holds a fair
supply of costumes:
Spider, seagull, fieldmouse.
each fits perfectly right off
and is dutifully worn
into shreds.

I didn't get a choice either,
but I can't complain.
I could have been someone
much less separate.
someone from an anthill, shoal, or buzzing swarm,
an inch of landscape ruffled by the wind.

Someone much less fortunate,
bred for my fur
or Christmas dinner,
something swimming under a square of glass.

A tree rooted to the ground
as the fire draws near.

A grass blade trampled by a stampede
of incomprehensible events.

A shady type whose darkness
dazzled some.

What if I'd prompted only fear,
Loathing,
or pity?

If I'd been born
in the wrong tribe
with all roads closed before me?

Fate has been kind
to me thus far.

I might never have been given
the memory of happy moments

My yen for comparison
might have been taken away.

I might have been myself minus amazement,
that is,
someone completely different.