Tag: Nobel

Czesław Miłosz | Gift

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ Leave a comment

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.

Czesław Miłosz | The World

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ Leave a comment

It appears that it was all a misunderstanding.
What was only a trial run was taken seriously.
The rivers will return to their beginnings.
The wind will cease in its turning about.
Trees instead of budding will tend to their roots.
Old men will chase a ball, a glance in the mirror–
They are children again.
The dead will wake up, not comprehending.
Till everything that happened has unhappened.
What a relief! Breathe freely, you who have suffered much.

(Translated by Czesław Miłosz and Robert Haas)