It is what it is

-- From Persian Parables --

 

By great, swift water
on a stony bank
a human skull was lying

and shouting: Allah la ilah.

And in that cry such horror
and such supplication
so great was its despair
that I asked the helmsman:

For what it still cry out? Of what is it still afraid?
What divine judgment could strike it yet again?

Suddenly there came a wave
took hold of the skull
and tossing it about
smashed it against the bank.

Nothing is ultimate
--the helmsman's voice was hollow--
and there is no bottom to evil.

      -- Aleksander Wat (translated from the Polish by Czesław Miłosz)