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# A Note
- URL: https://poetry101.love/a-note/
- Published: 2020-11-27T21:08:50.000Z
- Updated: 2021-01-24T16:25:40.000Z
- Description: by Wislawa Szymborska
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: Wislawa Szymborska, Morning Memory, #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

Life is the only way  
to get covered in leaves,  
catch your breath on the sand,  
rise on wings;

to be a dog,  
or stroke its warm fur;  
to tell pain  
from everything it's not;

to squeeze inside events,  
dawdle in views,  
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance  
to remember for a moment  
a conversation held  
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once  
to stumble upon a stone,  
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;  
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;  
and to keep on not knowing  
something important.

Szymborska, Wislawa. [Monologue of a Dog](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Monologue%5Fof%5Fa%5FDog/dUeUBgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&kptab=getbook&ref=poetry101.love). United States, HMH Books, 2015.

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### Why I chose this poem

When I read this, there is a spaciousness in the imagery, a moment of feeling before I can even begin to understand the words. It's like each ephemeral image holds its own ephemeral pause. And I feel it at the end, that life is the only way to keep on not knowing something important.