A poem for the day

[Swarna Rangarajan]

Dear students,
If you liked that symborska poem in the course work, you would
surely like this too.
Best, swarna


NO TITLE REQUIRED BY WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

It has come to this: I'm sitting under a tree
beside a river
on a sunny morning.
It's an insignificant event
and won't go down in history.
It's not battles and pacts,
where motives are scrutinized,
or noteworthy tyrannicides.
And yet I'm sitting by this river, that's a fact.
And since I'm here
I must have come from somewhere,
and before that
I must have turned up in many other places,
exactly like the conquerors of nations
before setting sail.
Even a passing moment has its fertile past,
its Friday before Saturday,
its May before June.
Its horizons are no less real
than those that a marshal's field glasses might scan.
This tree is a poplar that's been rooted here for years.
The river is the Raba; it didn't spring up yesterday.
The path leading through the bushes
wasn't beaten last week.
The wind had to blow the clouds here
before it could blow them away.
And though nothing much is going on nearby,
the world is no poorer in details for that.
It's just as grounded, just as definite
as when migrating races held it captive.
Conspiracies aren't the only things shrouded in silence.
Retinues of reasons don't trail coronations alone.
Anniversaries of revolutions may roll around,
but so do oval pebbles encircling the bay.
The tapestry of circumstance is intricate and dense.
Ants stitching in the grass.
The grass sewn into the ground.
The pattern of a wave being needled by a twig.
So it happens that I am and look.
Above me a white butterfly is fluttering through the air
on wings that are its alone,
and a shadow skims through my hands
that is none other than itself, no one else's but its own.
When I see such things, I'm no longer sure
that what's important
is more important than what's not.







On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Swarna Rangarajan <swarn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Students,
> I am sending along a really beautiful narrative- The Little Prince.
> The author,
> Antoine de Saint-Exupery (June 29, 1900 – presumably July 31, 1944)
> was a French writer and aviator. One of his most famous works is Le
> Petit Prince (The Little Prince). He disappeared on the night of July
> 31, 1944 while flying on a mission to collect data on German troop
> movements.
> The work speaks to us at many levels!
> Best, swarna
>
> On 10/18/12, Vaishali V <vaish...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello :)
>>
>> The essay I presented in class today was this :
>> http://www.salon.com/2000/03/18/why/
>>
>> Another interesting essay by Pico Iyer is this - "The Joy of
>> Quiet<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>
>> "
>>
>> Regards,
>> Vaishali
>>
>> --
>> Vaishali V
>> III Year Integrated M.A. in Economics
>> Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
>> +91 97910 11442 <http://start.fedoraproject.org/>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Literature and Values Odd Sem" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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>>
>>
>>

[Vamshi]

Mam, I've a class from 2 to 4:30 (R/T Slot). The 2'o clock slot is not free for 4th year CS students. So, all of us (CS students) can't attend today's class. Sorry mam, I would've mentioned this at the end of last class but I had to leave in a hurry as there was a quiz.


Thank you mam,
Vamshi.

--
Vamshidhar Rao Surabhi
4th Year CSE
IITM