Love at First Sight

"Love at first Sight" by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from Polish by Walter Whipple

Both are convinced
that a sudden urge of emotion bound them together.
Beautiful is such a certainty,
but uncertainty is more beautiful.


Because they didn't know each other earlier, they suppose that
nothing was happening between them.
What of the streets, stairways and corridors
where they could have passed each other long ago?


I'd like to ask them
whether they remember-- perhaps in a revolving door
ever being face to face?
an "excuse me" in a crowd
or a voice "wrong number" in the receiver.


But I know their answer:
no, they don't remember.
They'd be greatly astonished
to learn that for a long time
chance had been playing with them.


Not yet wholly ready
to transform into fate for them
it approached them, then backed off,
stood in their way
and, suppressing a giggle,
jumped to the side. There were signs, signals:
but what of it if they were illegible.


Perhaps three years ago,
or last Tuesday
did a certain leaflet fly
from shoulder to shoulder?
There was something lost and picked up.
Who knows but what it was a ball
in the bushes of childhood.


There were doorknobs and bells
on which earlier
touch piled on touch.
Bags beside each other in the luggage room.
Perhaps they had the same dream on a certain night,
suddenly erased after waking.


Every beginning
is but a continuation,
and the book of events
is never more than half open.


The opening verse was quoted in a movie that was showing on the telly on Sunday night. I've watched the movie two or three times before, but I still can't help but watch it to the end; it's such an amazing movie.

Jimmy is such a talented story-teller and writing, and this movie adaptation of his illustrated book was brilliantly done I thought. I don't usually like movie adaptations of the my favourite books but this was amazingly well-done. Even though they didn't follow the book version wholesale for the sake of cinematic story-telling effect, the additions made were in the spirit of the original story, and so well-weaved I don't think the fans of the book, like me, took any offense at the creative license taken. The music especially set the mood for this whimsical, almost fantastical story-line, drawing me so deep into the movie I returned to reality with a most severe jerk after when the credits started to roll.

I don't believe in the concept of Chance, and I didn't take very much to the movie's idea that Chance makes puppets of us, and that one is subjected to the whims and fancies of a very capricious Chance. But I do believe that there are people out there we are destined to meet, and we haven't met them because the time isn't right yet. And sometimes, these people are just so near, and yet they are so far away because we haven't recognised their value and their worth and their importance in our lives yet.

There's also the possibility of course, that we've met these people, and assuming there is really such a thing as Capricious Chance, that Chance didn't allow us to recognise our Destiny.