Easter has a deep religious meaning, but it speaks beyond the walls of the church. It’s more than an egg or a lily. It’s surprising to see it at the heart of it. It’s not certainty, it’s like calming despair with the quiet return of life that we didn’t expect. The poet Whiswawa Symbolska did not write about Easter, but the way she sees the world reflects something close to that.
Yogi Bella once said, “What you can see when you see is amazing.” He could have added, “It’s amazing that you are watching at all.” We are busy grasping things. Thoreau said that when we see plants we are thinking about botany. Even the lawns remind us that we must mow the grass. We do and think more than we see. It’s hard to be surprised anymore.
Szymborska, who won the Nobel Prize in 1996, was known for his ordinary humility and attention. Socrates said, “I know that I don’t know anything.” Szymborska preferred quieter than “I don’t know.” It wasn’t an excuse. It was an invitation. What’s in is strange.
She would have agreed to goalkeeper Chesterton. GkChesterton said, “The world will not starve because of the desire for wonder, but only the desire for wonder.” In her Nobel lecture, Szymborska wrote:
“Whatever we might think – fearing the vastness of the universe, suffering from indifference to suffering, or even plants feel pain. The star, the dead planet, and the short ticket we hold between two arbitrary volitional dates, we may think of this world, that’s surprising.”
For her, surprise is more than just a reaction. That’s the way it exists. With her poem In the crowdshe reflects:
“I could have been someone else / someone in a dynasty, shallow waters, or a bustling flock.”
She redefines creativity as openness to the unknown. Inspiration is not limited to poets. It visits doctors, teachers and gardeners. Everyone is someone who brings love and imagination to their work. It’s not certain that it matters, it’s important, it’s carefree.
This is not a resignation. Surprise does not mean avoiding difficult truths. It means refusing to paralyze them. Szymborska saw totalitarianism up close in communist Poland. She knew what happened when people claimed they knew too much. Certainty can be a weapon. Surprise keeps us humble. It creates space for others. “I don’t know” is a stance of protecting you from control.
Even in suffering, she creates room for wonder. She acknowledges the world’s indifference to pain, but she makes it all the story and resists. “Any other thing we might think of,” she insists, “it’s amazing.”
Everything should be fully understood, can, or can not be. Her surprise refuses to solve a simple answer. She embraces wonder and sadness together. She does not promise transformation – only recovery. It’s not necessarily a new life, but I lived my return to life with care.
So her work quietly reflects Easter with attitude rather than belief. Both ask us to look again. I realize that I’m still alive. The words “That’s amazing.” She once wrote, “That little phrase is small, but it flies to the mighty wings.”
“We will expand our lives to include the space within us and the outer spread where our little earth was hung. If Isaac Newton had never said, ‘I don’t know,’ he might have eaten an apple. My compatriot Skrodovska Curie didn’t say, “I don’t know.” But twice. ”
This is not an attempt to redefine Easter. It knows that its shape, what will come next – it will appear elsewhere. Szymborska does not ask us to believe. She asks us to look again and see life and love beyond what we can easily understand.
Notes and reading
Czesław Miłosz highly praised Wisława Szymborska. In particular, he wrote:
“She has an unusual ability to make poetry out of metaphysical confusion, and participates in wisdom and humor with a single voice. At an ironic distance, she tackles the most basic questions.” – After Miwars, New York Book ReviewsNovember 14th, 1996.
Readers who want to experience Szymborska’s voice more Map: Collected poems and final poemstranslated by Claire Cavanagh and Stanislaw Balatzzak. It is an inclusive and faithful gathering of her life’s work. A variety of editions are available. We recommend starting with a poem like this:
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“Maybe you have it.”
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“The end and the beginning”
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“I praise myself for feeling sick” – “…The Third Planet of the Sun/Of the signs of bestiality/A clear conscience is the best.”
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“Cat in the empty apartment”
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“surprise”
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“Like a poetry” – “That means that not everyone is/not even most.”
GK Chesterton – Absurdly trivial thing (1909, 2021). Perhaps the most popular essay book in Chesterton.
Tip #198 – Supernatural as a modern invention
Tip #197 – Heron at Dawn
Approx. 2 + 2 = 5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
