The Blessing and Elegance of Grace

There But For Grace by Wislawa Szymborska

It could have happened.

It had to happen.

It happened earlier. Later. 

Nearer. Farther. 

It happened, but not to you. 

You survived because you were the first. 

You survived because you were the last. 

Because you were alone. Because of people. 

Because you turned left. Because you turned right. 

Because rain fell. Because a shadow fell. 

Because sunny weather prevailed. 

Luckily there was a wood. 

Luckily there were no trees. 

Luckily a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake, 

a frame, a bend, a millimeter, a second. 

Luckily a straw was floating on the water. 

Thanks to, because, and yet, in spite of. 

What would have happened had not a hand, a foot, 

by a step, a hairsbreadth

by sheer coincidence. 

So you're here? Straight from that moment still ajar? 

The net had one hole, and you got through it? 

There's no end to my wonder, my silence. 

Listen, 

how fast your heart beats in me. 

The moment this poem began I felt as though I knew what it was about. I love the repetition, but difference, in each line. There’s almost contradiction in it’s repetitive stream. “You survived because you were the first. You survived because you were the last.” This doesn’t entirely make sense. How could one be both first and last? Alone and with people? Turning right and left in the rain and sun? This causes the ‘meaning’ of the poem to come across much more clearly, grace. We could count hundreds of things as the reason something did or did not occur. Maybe sometimes these little coincidences, perfect timings, or essentially placed straws don’t dictate what happens. Perhaps some things are orchestrated by something, or someOne, bigger. The title of this poem reminds me of a line from a Relient K song, “the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.” Szymborska’s poem recounts that “It could have happened. It had to happen. It happened earlier. Later. Nearer. Farther. It happened, but not to you.” Whatever tragedy (I’m assuming the occurrence was tragic from language of the poem) transpired, it was almost destined to occur, but perhaps grace allowed this tragedy to happen to a different soul. Grace’s beauty is that sometimes things do not happen to people who ‘deserve’ them, making life unfair, in a completely equitable way.