Talking to My Body Quotes

“You will not tame this sea
either by humility or rapture.
But you can laugh
in its face.
Laughter
was invented by those
who live briefly
as a burst of laughter.
The eternal sea
will never learn to laugh.”
― Anna Swir, Talking to My Body

“Tonight I am going to sleep alone
on the bedclothes of purity.
Aloneness
is the first hygienic measure.
Aloneness
will enlarge the walls of the room,
I will open the window
and the large, frosty air will enter,
healthy as tragedy.
Human thoughts will enter
and human concerns,
misfortune of others, saintliness of others.
They will converse softly and sternly.

Do not come anymore.
I am an animal
very rarely.

— Anna Świrszczyńska, from “I’ll Open the Window,” Talking to My Body, trans. by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan. Copper Canyon Press, (1996)”
― Anna Świrszczyńska, Talking to My Body

“I am born for the second time,
happiness of the world
came to me again.
My body effervescences,
I think with my body which effervesces.

If I wish
I will soar.”
― Anna Świrszczyńska, Talking to My Body

“I’ll Open the Window

Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right down to the bone.
I hear the bones grind, I see
our two skeletons.

Now I am waiting
till you leave, till
the clatter of your shoes
is heard no more. Now, silence.

Tonight I am going to sleep alone
on the bedclothes of purity.
Aloneness
is the first hygienic measure.
Aloneness
will enlarge the walls of the room,
I will open the window
and the large, frosty air will enter,
healthy as tragedy.
Human thoughts will enter
and human concerns,
misfortune of others, saintliness of others.
They will converse softly and sternly.

Do not come anymore.
I am an animal
very rarely.”
― Anna Świrszczyńska, Talking to My Body