At moments like this—when there is nothing to do but sift through wreckage, when the universe is scrambled and we perceive that some have emerged lucky and some unlucky, when we’re faced with the puny proportions of our existence—I can’t help but think of the poet Wislawa Szymborska. Almost all of her poems seem to have been written after some gigantic, destructive storm (and, in a way, they were: she is one of the most wry and perceptive poets of post-Second World War Poland), and she has appointed herself chief investigator. Deftly, patiently, curiously, she turns over the objects she finds washed up on the shore after a catastrophic event, imagining what uses they were put to, what uses they might have now.

Click-through to read Wislaw Szymborska’s “Into the Ark,” and more from Sasha Weiss on the poet: http://nyr.kr/WYJqkf