The Joy Of Writing.

I am not sure how others view writing but for me, writing has always been therapeutic and I derived a certain amount of satisfaction and definite joy from it. While I have always wanted to write short stories and even poetry since I was young, it was only recently, about 6 months ago when I got my personal desktop, that I was able to actually fulfilled this ambition through my various blogs and articles submission. Be it writing a short story or a post in a blog, the completion of a piece of writing always gives me tremendous satisfaction.

In society, writing is essential as it connects us to culture, people, knowledge, work and at times, gives meaning to life. It is a process of turning experiences into text and allows for communication of thoughts and feelings. Writing is an act of discovery, an act of joy and a catalyst for imagining and creating the future.

With that in mind, here is a piece of poetry, "The Joy of Writing" by Wislawa Szymborska, a Polish poet, that I would like to share with readers. Incidentally, this piece won The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.

The Joy of Writing
Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word "woods."

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

They forget that what's here isn't life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.

By Wislawa Szymborska
From "No End of Fun", 1967

*For more poems of startling originality, read Wislawa Szymborska's "View With A Grain Of Sand"

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