“My apologies to great questions for small answers.”
It is a line of a poem by Wislawa Szymborska, a Polish poet and essayist.
I have always believed that, beyond the official interpretations and analysis of the text, the poems should be “felt”.
The interpretation and the feeling that arises from them can be very different for each one, and they also change during our life, depending on the events we are living.
What this poem makes me feel in this historical moment, for example, is different from what I felt when I read it the first time.
Today, while I’m living in isolation, while I read from day to day the increase in deaths, while I lead such a monotonous existence yet accompanied in the background by a fear that, however does not emerge, it remains an annoying hum that’s always there.
Today while I am annoyed by many small things and renunciations, yet I am also aware of the tragedy and pain that is consumed in another hundred, thousand houses.
Today this poem has a different meaning for me.
Today I’m uploading these photos: they have been shot in a rush in the home garden, with garments I already had uploaded in the past. There weren’t a concept, a palette, a location, a careful editorial plan.
While I look at them, I think of how banal and yet full of light they are, how simple mimosa flowers are, but also how their multitude seems magnificent like a golden waterfall.
I think of all the small and normal things that are nothing but, even so, they fill our existence and adorn it.
All those little answers that will never be enough to solve a big question, but that in their multitude they fall on the aridity of doubt and confusion and they make the garden of our thoughts and our lives flourish.
“My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all.
Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don’t pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man.
I know I won’t be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.”
Wislawa Szymborska
Items featured in this lookbook:
– ISELLE TOP (SILK)
See lookbook “The Enchanted Forest”
– THEMIS SKIRT (DAMASCUS)
Silver and gray structured damask skirt, with jewel button with pearl, side zip and pleats.
– CLORI SKIRT (JACQUARD) – Sold out
See “Charme tea” lookbook
– BOUCLÈ PINAFORE (VINTAGE BOUCLÈ WOOL) – Sold out
Bouclé wool pinafore dress with flower embroidery made with ribbons on the skirt, wide V-neck and side zip.
– ARABELLA TOP (JERSEY)
See “Sirmione” lookbook
– HESTIA SKIRT (SILK ORGANZA)
See “Sirmione” lookbook
– AURA TOP (SHANTUNG)
See “Sirmione” lookbook
– ACASTA SKIRT (JACQUARD)
Blue damask skirt with wide tulle underskirt and soft viscose lining, side pockets and central back closure with zip and hook
Photo: Elia Pizzocolo
