<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><div><div id="mod-article-header" class="" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 20px;"><h1 class="" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 25px; font-weight: normal;"><font size="4">Conversation with a Stone </font></h1></div><div id="mod-article-byline" class="" style="padding: 0px 10px 10px 0px; margin: 5px 0px 4px; border: 0px; line-height: 20px;"><br></div></div><div id="mod-article-byline" class="" style="padding: 0px 10px 10px 0px; margin: 5px 0px 4px; border: 0px; line-height: 20px;"><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I knock at the stone's front door</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"It's only me, let me come in.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I want to enter your insides,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">have a look around,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">breathe my fill of you."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"Go away," says the stone.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"I'm shut tight.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">Even if you break me to pieces,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">we'll all still be closed.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">You can grind us to sand,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">we still won't let you in."<br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I knock at the stone's front door.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"It's only me, let me come in.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I've come out of pure curiosity.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">Only life can quench it.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I mean to stroll through your palace,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I don't have much time.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">My mortality should touch you."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"I'm made of stone," says the stone.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"And must therefore keep a straight face.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">Go away.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I don't have the muscles to laugh."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I knock at the stone's front door.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"It's only me, let me come in.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I hear you have great empty halls inside you,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">unseen, their beauty in vain,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">soundless, not echoing anyone's steps.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">Admit you don't know them well yourself.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"Great and empty, true enough," says the stone,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"but there isn't any room.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">of your poor senses.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">You may get to know me but you'll never know me</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"> through.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">My whole surface is turned toward you,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">all my insides turned away."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I knock at the stone's front door.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"It's only me, let me come in.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I don't seek refuge for eternity.<br></p><div id="mod-a-body-after-second-para" class="" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I'm not unhappy.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I'm not homeless.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">My world is worth returning to.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I'll enter and exit empty-handed.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">And my proof I was there</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">will be only words,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">which no one will believe."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"You shall not enter," says the stone.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"You lack the sense of taking part.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">No other sense can make up for your missing sense of</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"> taking part.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">Even sight heightened to become all-seeing</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">will do you no good without a sense of taking part.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"> sense should be,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">only its seed, imagination."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I knock at the stone's front door.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"It's only me, let me come in.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I haven't got two thousand centuries,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">so let me come under your roof."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"If you don't believe me," says the stone,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">And, finally, ask a hair from your own head.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I am bursting from laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter,</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">although I don't know how to laugh."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><br></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">I knock at the stone's front door.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">"It's only me, let me come in.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;">“I don't have a door," says the stone.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Wislawa Szymborska</p></div></div></div></body></html>