NOTES FROM A NONEXISTENT HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION
So these are the Himalayas.
Mountains racing to the moon.
The moment of their start recorded
on the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.
Holes punched in a desert of clouds.
Thrust into nothing.
Echo--a white mute.
Quiet.
Yeti, down there we've got Wednesday,
bread and alphabets.
Two times two is four.
Roses are red there,
and violets are blue.
Yeti, crime is not all
we're up to down there.
yeti, not every sentence there
means death.
We've inherited hope-
the gift of forgetting.
You'll see how we give birth among the ruins.
Yeti, we've got Shakespeare there.
Yeti, we play solitaire
and violin. At nightfall,
we turn lights on, Yeti.
Up here it's neither moon nor earth.
Tears freeze.
Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,
turn back, think again!
I called this to the Yeti
inside four walls of avalance,
stomping my feet for warmth
on the everlasting
snow.
-Wislawa Symborska (1923 - )
from View With a Grain of Sand
