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The ultimate meet-cute of a poem, Love at First Sight from Wisława Szymborska is a cinematic moment of poetic blushing, brushing back your hair and breaking into irrepressible smiles as a first glance feels more like a plunge into cosmic destiny. Paired with the gorgeous artwork of , publisher Seven Stories Press brings this romantic comedy of a poem from the great Nobel Prize winning poet to new life. It pulses with the elevated heartbeat of love, the first look that feels less like “hello�� and more like “we’ve found each other,�� as the stanzas whimsically trace the lifelines of two lovers through potential previous near-miss encounters as the universe weaves them towards one another. It is a poem to melt any heart and make one swoon at the adorable first sparks of love.

I for one am not above loving ��the phenomenon of great love,�� as Szymborska terms it in her prose essay collection Nonrequired Reading. ��Great love is never justified,�� she writes, its the sort of love that makes you act in ways those outside the situation may find foolish yet, from within the circle of adoration such sweeping acts of affection are like a lifegiving rain on a dry yearning field of the heart. Or, as she writes in the essay Great Love:

��t’s like the little tree that springs up in some inexplicable fashion on the side of a cliff: where are its roots, what does it feed on, what miracle produces those green leaves? But it does exist and it really is green �� clearly, then, it’s getting whatever it needs to survive.��

The phenomenon of great love is glimpsed in the poem here as the couple suddenly feel like they found the other half of their soul and wonder how many times destiny ��pushed them close, drove them apart�� before arriving together. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself, here is the full poem for the uninitiated:

Love At First Sight

They’re both convinced
that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful,
but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Since they’d never met before, they’re sure
that there’d been nothing between them.
But what’s the word from the streets, staircases, hallways ��
perhaps they’ve passed by each other a million times?

I want to ask them
if they don’t remember ��
a moment face to face
in some revolving door?
perhaps a “sorry�� muttered in a crowd?
a curt “wrong number�� caught in the receiver?
but I know the answer.
No, they don’t remember.

They’d be amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

There were signs and signals,
even if they couldn’t read them yet.
Perhaps three years ago
or just last Tuesday
a certain leaf fluttered
from one shoulder to another?
Something was dropped and then picked up.
Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished
into childhood’s thicket?

There were doorknobs and doorbells
where one touch had covered another
beforehand.
Suitcases checked and standing side by side.
One night, perhaps, the same dream,
grown hazy by morning.

Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

It’s so cute, right? I love the final stanza, the book of events having a whole world of possibilities awaiting them. And all the times they may have met before, leading this love at first sight to feel like perhaps they’ve always known one another. I like to this this couple is the same from Szymborska’s poem Lovers where a couple dreams of parting but we are told ��it’s a good dream / since we wake up from it�� and discover themselves still wrapped up together.

I really appreciate the artwork in this and how the people look a bit monstrous but in a cool and rather quirky fun way. It’s all very cute and I can’t hate a good goose theme in art so cheers to that (or, I suppose, ‘honk!��). I read a digital edition of this but I love how each page flows into the next and actually unfolds to be a long landscape of art as opposed to how poetry flows vertically down:

I also really love the depiction of random stuff, organized in a very Wes Anderson overhead shot sort of way. It shows how their belongings can indicate so much of their personality, trinkets picked up along the path of life, artifacts of a past where they may have crossed paths or just an object that has an endearing meaning because it belongs to someone you adore. Like I said, this whole thing is just really adorable.

So poetry lovers, lovers of love, lovers or art, whoever you are, come one come all to check out this lovely little book Love at First Sight bringing a romantic union between the art of Beatrice Gasca Queirazza and the poetry of Polish poet Wisława Szymborska.