![\"Clouds\"](\"http:\/\/photos10.flickr.com\/12857844_3cf1639789.jpg\")
<\/a>\nSydney’s skies, Dec 2003<\/i>
\nI’d have to be really quick
\nto describe clouds –
\na split second’s enough
\nfor them to start being something else.
\nTheir trademark:
\nthey don’t repeat a single
\nshape, shade, pose, arrangement.
\nUnburdened by memory of any kind,
\nthey float easily over the facts.
\nWhat on earth could they bear witness to?
\nThey scatter whenever something happens.
\nCompared to clouds,
\nlife rests on solid ground,
\npractically permanent, almost eternal.
\nNext to clouds
\neven a stone seems like a brother,
\nsomeone you can trust,
\nwhile they’re just distant, flightly cousins.
\nLet people exist if they want,
\nand then die, one after another:
\nclouds simply don’t care
\nwhat they’re up to
\ndown there.
\nAnd so their haughty fleet
\ncruises smoothly over your whole life
\nand mine, still incomplete.
\nThey aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone.
\nThey don’t have to be seen while sailing on.
\n~ Wislawa Szymborska (1923 – )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"