So these are the Himalayas.
Mountains racing to the moon.
The moment of their start recorded 
on the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.
Holes punched in a desert of clouds.
Thrust into nothing.
Echo- a white mute.
Quiet.

Yeti, down there we've got Wednesday,
bread and alphabets.
Two times two is four.
Roses are red there,
and violets are blue.

Yeti, crime is not all
we're up to down there.
Not every sentence there
means death.

We've inherited hope-
the gift of forgetting.
You'll see how we give
birth among the ruins.

Yeti, we've got Shakespeare there.
Yeti, we play solitaire
and violin. At nightfall, 
we turn lights on, Yeti.

Up here it's neither moon nor earth.
Tears freeze.
Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,
turn back think again!

I called this to the Yeti
inside four walls of avalanche,
stomping my feet for warmth
on the everlasting 
snow.

Poem by Wisława Szymborska
Trans. from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

Iris Fan