from “Commemoration”
They both knelt down on the lakeshore,
they combed the dry leaves from their hair;
small fish, a star’s converging rays,
swam up to stare.
Swallow’s heart, have
mercy on them.
Reflected in the rippling lake,
trees trembled, nebulous and gray;
o swallow, let them never, never
forget this day.
— Wistawa Szymborska, Poems New and Collected
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