We’re Extremely Fortunate, By Wislawa Szymborska

We’re extremely fortunate

not to know precisely

the kind of world we live in.

One would have

to live a long, long time,

unquestionably longer

than the world itself.

Get to know other worlds

if only for comparison.

Rise above the flesh,

which only really knows

how to obstruct

and make trouble.

For the sake of research,

the big picture

and definitive conclusions,

one would have to transcend time,

in which everything scurries and whirls.

From that perspective,

one might as well bid farewell

to incidents and details.

The counting of weekdays

would inevitably seem to be

a senseless activity;

dropping letters in the mailbox

a whim of foolish youth;

the sign “No Walking on the Grass”

a symptom of lunacy.

From “The End and the Beginnning” (1993)