Motion
.
You're crying here, but they're dancing,
there they're dancing in your tear.
There they're happy, making merry,
they don't know a blessed thing.
Almost the glimmering of mirrors.
Almost candles flickering.
Nearly staircases and hallways.
Gestures, lace cuffs, so it seems.
Hydrogen, oxygen, those rascals.
Chlorine, sodium, a pair of rogues.
The fop nitrogen parading
up and down, around, about
beneath the vault, inside the dome.
Your crying's music to their ears.
Yes, eine kleine Nachtmusik.
Who are you, lovely masquerader.
.
by Wistlawa Szymborska
from Map, Collected and last poems
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
translation: Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak