(The pictures are form Jimmy's illustration book.)
Love at First Sight ---- Wislawa Szymborska
(Translation from French by Sarah Hardenberg)
Both are convinced
that a sudden surge of emotion bound them together.
Beautiful is such a certainty,
but uncertainty is more beautiful.
Because they didn’t know each other earlier, they suppose that
nothing was happening between them.
What of the streets, stairways and corridors
where they could have passed each other long ago?
I’d like to ask them
whether they remember—perhaps in a revolving door
ever being face to face?
an “excuse me” in a crowd
or a voice “wrong number” in the receiver.
But I know their answer:
no, they don’t remember.
They’d be greatly astonished
to learn that for a long time
chance had been playing with them.
Not yet wholly ready
to transform into fate for them
it approached them, then backed off,
stood in their way
and, suppressing a giggle,
jumped to the side. There were signs, signals:
but what of it if they were illegible.
Perhaps three years ago,
or last Tuesday
did a certain leaflet fly
from shoulder to shoulder?
There was something lost and picked up.
Who knows but what it was a ball
in the bushes of childhood.
There were doorknobs and bells
on which earlier
touch piled on touch.
Bags beside each other in the luggage room.
Perhaps they had the same dream on a certain night,
suddenly erased after waking.
Every beginning
is but a continuation,
and the book of events
is never more than half open.
The first time I read this story is form a book called " 向左走向右走."It's a illustration book which was drawn by Jimmy(幾米) , a famous illustrator . He used plenty of scenes of the crossing between two people , who are eager to find each other . But the fate just keeps breaking off them . Maybe we all once had this kind of feeling and experience , because we didn't pay attention to the person who is just passing by . Perhaps we are in the same situation without noticing it . In Chinese , we call it "緣分" , a inarticulate and wondrous arbitrator of relationship between existences on earth . I really love the interpret of this poem . Especially the way that the poet described the encounters of people . It touched me .
