raylene

A Word on
Statistics

Wislawa Szymborska
Translated
from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak
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Out of every hundred
people,

those who always know better:
fifty-two.

Unsure
of every step:
almost all the rest.

Ready to help,
if it
doesn't take long:
forty-nine.

Always good,
because they
cannot be otherwise:
four_well, maybe five.

Able to
admire without envy:
eighteen.

Led to error
by youth
(which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be
messed with:
four-and-forty.

Living in constant fear
of
someone or something:
seventy-seven.

Capable of
happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,
turning
savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.

Cruel
when
forced by circumstances:
it's better not to know,
not even
approximately.

Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than
wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except
things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).

Balled
up in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three,
sooner or later.

Those who are just:
quite a few, thirty
five.

But if it takes effort to understand:
three.

Worthy
of empathy:
ninety-nine.

Mortal:
one hundred out of one
hundred_
a figure that has never varied yet.

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Interesting, no?
It's a poem that was read by my prof in my philosophy class.