The World Doesn’t End
Everything's forseeable. Everything has already been foreseen. What has been fated cannot be avoided. Even this boiled potato. This fork. This chunk of dark bread. This thought too.... My grandmother sweeping the sidewalk knows that. She says there's no god, only an eye here and there that sees clearly. The neighbors are too busy watching TV to burn her as a witch.
This poem is one of the untitled sections from The World Doesn’t End (Ecco, 1989)
Fabulous poem! One of my all time favorites! So nice to find it here again, to be reminded again of how subversive we can be while others are distracted.
Was just listening to a conversation with theoretical physicist Sean Carrol who basically said the first part of Simic's poem. But only Simic could have combined that notion with the title and grandmother and the frigging neighbors — all of which, of course, was foreseeable.