The poem is in free verse and rather than having a definitive rhythm and rhyme scheme, the poet has the lines mirror the cadences of speech. This gives the effect that the poet is speaking personally and directly to the reader, in almost a confessional tone, which seems to say that this is the truth about war, the behind the scenes, the reality.
The title and first sentence of the poem tell us that the “end” of the war is only the “beginning” of the rebuilding, that “after every war, someone has to tidy up”. What we learn from the title and first sentence is that this poem will not comment on the reasons behind war, rather on the aftermath, when the glory of the war is subsumed in the practical observation that somebody has to clean up.
The following three stanzas become more detailed. These stanzas present the simple fact that someone has to “shove rubbles to the roadsides” so that “carts loaded with corpses can get by”, that “someone has to trudge though sludge and ashes”, someone has to “lug the post and prop the walls”. These descriptions, alongside the accumulation of images of “sofa springs, shards of glass, and bloody rags”, address the horrendous cost of war and the back-breaking task of rebuilding.
The proceedings stanzas show that once rebuilding begins, there is much to do, -- walls to prop up, glass to put back, doors to be hinged. Since “all the cameras have gone to other wars" we are forced to question ourselves: Is it really the act of destruction that interests us? Rebuilding, as the poem says, “takes years” yet “no sound bites”, “no photos” are taken.
The next stanza continues in this light, outlining the bridges that need to be rebuilt, the railroad stations too. Metaphorical sleeves must be rolled up and with "brooms in hand," there is a lot of work to be done.
Szymborska makes the observation that those who have been through this ordeal understand: "Someone else listens, still remembering how it was, nodding his unshattered head.” On the other hand, even at this early point in the process of reconstruction, there are those, nearby, who will need persuasion. In other words, for anyone who was not at the scene of the destruction, who did not see and feel the reverberations of the bombs, the carnage and the destruction and the suffering, chooses not to believe. The account of destruction can be so horrendous, that it is easy to discount it rather then face the grim reality of the situation. Eventually, those "who knew" what occurred "must make way for those who know little. And less than that."
The final stanza describes somebody lying there in the grass, the battlefield, completely ignorant of what occurred. With “cornstalk in his teeth” he sits “gawking at the clouds.” In other words, the awful message of the poem is that, when it comes to war, humanity has failed to learn from past experiences. If humanity, as a race, was sensible, we would have learned a very long time ago not to make war on one another. The carnage and destruction of war are so awful that it seems reasonable that people should avoid it at all costs. However, eventually, the wounds heal, the rebuilding is completed and people are once more blissfully ignorant of what war is really like. There is grass that “covers up the cause and effects” while the people who remember are pushed away, discounted, and blown over by people who actually know "nothing" about what war actually does to those who endure it.
In order to analyze Szymborska’s impulse in writing “The End and the Beginning”, I believe that it is important to understand that her background has profoundly influenced her writing. Born in Poland in 1923, she worked as a railroad laborer during the Second World War. Since she has seen her country and people ravaged by the scourges of war, she has grown increasingly dissident towards the concept of war itself and although her early works were born more or less within the straitjacket of the Socialist Realism, her later works are marked with skepticism of war and the human condition. As a result, Szymborska has never stopped believing in the power of words and often uses her poetry to fight for what she believes in, which often arises into an abundant use of metapoetry seen in poems such as The Joy of Writing and A Starvation Camp Near Jaslo.
Her belief in the power of words is a key factor in understanding Szymborska's impulse behind writing “The End and The Beginning”. The poem is evocative of all the times when the memory of war has grown dim, when war and soldiering takes on a glory about it that it certainly does not deserve. We, like the person in the last stanza, eventually lie there on the new grass that covers the once-scarred battlefield, dreaming of being a hero. By writing down as a poem, however, Szymborska ensures that we cannot forget the destruction that war entails. This poem can serve as a memory of the forgotten scars; for those who know nothing, it depicts the destructive effects of the end on the beginning.
In effect, Wislawa Szymborska’s “The End and The Beginning” is a sad and poignant commentary on the intelligence of going to war with one another. She shows us that for life to go on after war, somebody has the thankless job of sorting through the debris and building a new life. Like other poems of hers, such as “Reality Demands”, this poem opens our minds to the idea that war is seemingly pointless, cyclical and destructive.
