April 12, 2006: Late Ripeness Czeslaw Milosz
Late Ripeness
Czeslaw Milosz
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
(translated by Robert Hass)
[I feel like there’s something kind of lovely that happens among some
older poets — a calmness and grace in the face of death, a focus on
religion. It shows up in Roethke’s famous villanelle, “The Waking,”
and T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” and here. My favorite line is: “We
forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.” It’s
so dreamlike and strangely comforting.
Then again, in his poem “Conversation with Jeanne,” Milosz says, “I
don’t pretend to the dignity of a wise old age.” So maybe nobody really knows what’s going on. Czeslaw Milosz was born in Poland in 1911 and was active in the anti-Nazi movement. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.]
A YEAR AGO TODAY: A Martian Sends A Postcard Home, Craig Raine
