Utopia

Island where all becomes clear.

Solid ground beneath your feet.

The only roads are those that offer access.

Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs.

The Tree of Valid Supposition grows herewith branches disentangled since time immemorial.

The Tree of Understanding, dazzlingly straight and simple,sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It.

The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista:the Valley of Obviously.

If any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly.

Echoes stir unsummonedand eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds.

On the right a cave where Meaning lies.

On the left the Lake of Deep Conviction.
Truth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface.

Unshakable Confidence towers over the valley.
Its peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things.

For all its charms, the island is uninhabited,and the faint footprints scattered on its beachesturn without exception to the sea.

As if all you can do here is leaveand plunge, never to return, into the depths.

Into unfathomable life.

By Wislawa Szymborska
From "A large number", 1976 Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh