"Late love". A version of "Tale of Late Love", poem

The heroine of the poem is Wanda Rutkiewicz, a Polish Himalayan climber who climbed Mount Everest in 1978. Różewicz came across her entry in the guest book of the Museum of Sport and Tourism in Karpacz. She fascinated the poet, however it was not she who was the “belated love”, but the Karkonosze, mountains which the writer discovered for himself as late as 1996. The poem describes the beauty of the landscapes, the proximity of death and extreme experiences, but does so in a warm and pathos-free manner. The author also refers to the feeling of being threatened by the element, an experience he had during the “millennial flood” in Wrocław in 1997. Różewicz wrote several versions of his poems and changed their texts even after they appeared in print. The full version of “Gawędy...” was not published until 2006. (“Utwory zebrane” [“Collected Works”], vol. 10). The manuscript is part of Tadeusz Różewicz’s collection.