The sketch is an attempt to analyse a late poem by Aleksander Wat [***] I sat in the rushes which was emblematic of the final period of his works. Major interpretative tropes include: the dedication to Pierre Emmanuel, reference to the thesis of Wat’s paper Poésie contre l’histoire dated 1959 and, through poem’s imagery, to Julian Tuwim’s Rushes (1924) and Above the vast, clear depths… by Adam Mickiewicz. For Mickiewicz, the epiphany-like experience of vision at water’s edge helps discover the fundamental principle of existence. The lyrical subject in Wat’s poem does not ponder on the essence and purpose of existence, or, all the more, on poetry. The subject is not caught in the rush of life but in the state of limbo, between life and death.