Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska passed away on February 1st. I note this with double regret. Szymborska has long been one of my favorite poets but I don't think I have read any of her poetry for years. There are at least two kinds of death: the moment that the heart gives up its charge and all the moments of neglect and inattention that precede the final event. It is a basic fact about human beings that we use the occasion of death to remember, thus fighting a losing but perhaps heroic battle against the little deaths.
In her honor, I offer a poem that I occasionally use in my biology and politics course.
In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself
The buzzard never says it is to blame.
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.
It's hard to beat that line "if snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean." What does it mean to say that lions and lice "know they're right"? Perhaps only this: that to know one is right is not angelic but beastly.
Szymborska doesn't include any primates in her list, which may be deliberate. She was a very scientifically astute poet. At least some traces of a moral sense have been detected in monkeys and apes.
The essential task of all art is to see, to respond to what Robert Penn Warren described as the sense that the world is trying to tell us something. What the poet demonstrates here is that the bad conscience is not only uniquely human but is about striving to be or become human. That's not bad for twelve lines.
Thank you. That was very nice and thought-provoking.
Posted by: D.E. Bishop | Sunday, February 05, 2012 at 10:47 PM
You're welcome, D.E.B. I couldn't find another of poems that I wanted to comment on, so there may be a follow up post.
Posted by: Ken Blanchard | Monday, February 06, 2012 at 10:33 PM