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On Prayer

Czeslaw Milosz, Czeslaw Milosz poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry,  poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, Christian poetry by Czeslaw Milosz
(1911 - 2004) Timeline

English version by
Robert Hass

Original Language
Polish

Secular or Eclectic
Christian : Catholic
20th Century

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

 

 

-- from New and Collected Poems 1931 - 2001, by Czeslaw Milosz

Amazon.com

 

Themes

  Sun
 
 
 
 


Recommended Books


Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, Edited by Carolyn Forche
Bells in Winter, by Czeslaw Milosz / Translated by Lillian Vallee
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, Edited by Czeslaw Milosz
The Collected Poems, by Czeslaw Milosz
The Land of Ulro, by Czeslaw Milosz

More >>

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
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