Hommage á Wisława Szymborska

I prefer walking with my friends to foot-race.
I prefer sitting with my coffee on a morning to rushing to work.
I prefer gazing at the birds to closing them in a cage.
I prefer silence but not muteness.
I prefer screevers, street musicians and puppeteers.

I prefer children building sandcastle.
I prefer a bar of chocolate to barcodes.
I prefer the helix and whiteness of snail shells.
I prefer if a feather falls in front of me.
I prefer collecting stones and pebbles.
I prefer if there is a conker in my coat-pocket.

I prefer kitchen marms to headmasters.
I prefer postmen who are the angels of weekdays.
I prefer the smile of a little child to the smile of the politicians on placards.

I prefer that if a storm floods the streets, I can take off my shoes and continue barefoot.
I prefer blank pages to texts of formal letters.
I prefer a homeless who is sleeping on the bench, and in his dream he is in a big, joyous family.
I prefer if all the addicts became as free as they were when they were born.
I prefer if it would be as easy to heal invisible wounds as lighting a sparkler.

I prefer the tiny fingers of frogs
and wise Basho’s haiku of the old toad.

I prefer that this poem is unstoppable,
because it means that there are endless
lovable things in the world.