The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.
A jackal doesn't understand remorse.
Lions and lice don't waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they're right?
Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
in every other way they're light.
On this third planet of the sun
among the signs of bestiality
a clear conscience is Number One.
(from A Large Number, Wislawa Szymborska, 1976, and reprinted in her collection View With a Grain of Sand, 1996, which won her the Nobel Prize for Literature. Translated from the Polish by Claire Cavenaugh.)
Posts
1 comment:
Thanks for this poem. I looked on my slim bookshelf and, gosh darn, her book was there.
Claire
Post a Comment