"If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean." - Wislawa Szymborska

IN PRAISE OF FEELING BAD ABOUT YOURSELF

The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.

A jackal doesn't understand remorse.
Lions and lice don't waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they're right?

Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
in ever other way they're light.

On this third planet of the sun
among the signs of bestiality
a clear conscience is Number One.

-Wislawa Szymborska (translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh). From Poems New and Collected

Wislawa Szymborska, 1923-2012