A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.
Czesław Miłosz
from New & Collected Poems 1931-2001 (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2001), copyright © Czesław Miłosz Royalties Inc., 1988, 1991, 1995, 2001.
