“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 something no non-being can hold.
—Wisława Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh)
—from Poems: New and Collected
« from The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen