Clouds over Europe - part 1

Clouds are always with us although they never belong to us.

    Clouds over Normandy

  

    Clouds over Spain

Clouds by Wisława Szymborska.

I’d have to be really quick to describe clouds -
a split second’s enough
for them to start being something else.
Their trademark:
they don’t repeat a single
shape, shade, pose, arrangement.

Clouds over Spain

Unburdened by memory of any kind,
they float easily over the facts.
What on earth could they bear witness to?
They scatter whenever something happens.

   Clouds over Madrid

Compared to clouds,

life rests on solid ground,

practically permanent, almost eternal.

    Clouds over Lisbon

Next to clouds
even a stone seems like a brother,
someone you can trust,
while they’re just distant, flighty cousins.

    Clouds over Portugal

Let people exist if they want,
and then die, one after another:
clouds simply don't care
what they're up to down there.

    Clouds over Sevilla

And so their haughty fleet
cruises smoothly over your whole life
and mine, still incomplete.

   Clouds over Barcelona

   Clouds over Chamonix

They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone.
They don't have to be seen while sailing on. 

                                                            Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.

    Clouds over Alps