The Century’s Decline
Our 20th century was going to improve on the others.
It will never prove it now,
now that its years are numbered,
its gait is shaky
its breath is short.
Too many things have happened
that weren’t supposed to happen,
and what was supposed to come about,
have not.
Happiness and spring, among other things,
were supposed to be getting closer.
Fear was expected to leave the mountains and the valleys.
Truth was supposed to hit home
before a lie.
A couple of problems weren’t going
to come up any more,
hunger, for example,
and war, and so forth.
There was going to be respect
for helpless people’s helplessness,
trust, that kind of stuff.
Anyone who planned to enjoy the world
is now faced
with a hopeless task.
Stupidity isn’t funny.
Wisdom isn’t gay.
Hope
isn’t that young girl anymore,
etcetera, alas.
God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong,
but good and strong
are still to different men.
“How should we live?” someone asked me in a letter.
I had meant to ask him
the same question.
Again and as ever,
as may be seen above,
the most pressing questions
are naïve ones.
Wislawa Szymborska
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