The End and the Beginning
by Wislawa Szymborska

(translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)
After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the sides of the road,
so the corpse-laden wagons
can pass.
Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.
Someone must drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone must glaze a window,
rehang a door.
Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left for another war.

Like Swimming Upstream, The Pianist
...by Roman Polanski, is a movie we all should have the guts to see.
· Disharmony [JanaWendt]