Autonomy by Wislawa Szymborska

In danger the holothurian splits itself in two: it offers one self to be devoured by the world and in it's second self escapes.

In the middle of the holothurian's body a chasm opens and it's edges immediately become alien to each other.

On one edge, death, the other, life.

Here despair, there, hope.

To die as much as necessary, without overstepping the bounds.

To grow again from a salvaged remnant.

Here a heavy heart, there non omnis mortar, three little words only, like three little plumes ascending.

Wislawa Szymborska, 1996 Nobel prize winner for literature.