Wislawa Szymborska. Pertama kali dengar nama itu di filmnya Takeshi Kaneshiro, Turn Left, Turn Right. Salah satu tokoh di film itu (diperankan oleh Gigi Leung) adalah penggemar Szymborska dan menyukai puisinya yang berjudul Love at First Sight. Waktu itu sempat sih mencari tahu siapa itu Wislawa Szymborska yang katanya pernah mendapat nobel di bidang sastra ini, tapi ya, seiring berjalannya waktu, saya lupa. 

Nah kemarin, di kuliah Bahasa Polandia, saya kembali menemukan nama Wislawa Szymborska (baca : Vi-swava simborska). Saya merasa nama ini familiar untuk saya. Barulah saat itu guru bahasa saya mengatakan bahwa beliau adalah salah satu penyair besar Polandia yang meninggal beberapa tahun lalu, saya baru ngeh. Ach soo.... Penasaran, saya mencari buku-bukunya di beberapa toko buku di Warsaw, terutama yang dekat kampus. Nie! Ngga ada. Bahkan yang Bahasa Polandia sekalipun. Jadi lah saya mencari beberapa puisinya di internet. Saya bagi deh dua yang langsung jadi favorit : 

Possibilities 

I prefer movies.

I prefer cats.

I prefer the oaks along the Warta.

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.

 I prefer myself liking people

to myself loving mankind.

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.

I prefer the color green.

I prefer not to maintain

that reason is to blame for everything.

I prefer exceptions.

I prefer to leave early.

I prefer talking to doctors about something else.

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems

to the absurdity of not writing poems.

I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries

that can be celebrated every day.

I prefer moralists

who promise me nothing.

I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.

I prefer the earth in civvies.

I prefer conquered to conquering countries.

I prefer having some reservations.

I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.

I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.

I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.

I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.

I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.

I prefer desk drawers.

I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here 

to many things I've also left unsaid

I prefer zeroes on the loose

to those lined up behind a cipher.

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.

I prefer to knock on wood.

I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility

that existence has its own reason for being.

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,

the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,

I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing, 

I make it something no non-being can hold.