Wislawa Szymborska from "Starvation Camp Near Jaslo"

"Write it down. Write it. With
   ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they weren't
   given food,
they all died of hunger. All. How
   many?
It's a large meadow. How much
   grass
per head? Write down: I don't
   know.
History rounds off skeletons to
   zero.
A thousand and one is still only a
   thousand.
That one never seems to have 
   existed
a fictitious fetus, an empty cradle,
a primer opened for no one,
air that laughs, cries, grows,
stairs for avoid bounding out to
   the garden,
no one's spot in the ranks.


It became flesh right here, on this
   meadow.
But the meadow's silent, like a
   witness who has been bought..."

Wislawa Szymborska from "Starvation Camp Near Jaslo"