milosz poem

Dreams of Red wrote:

To My Daimonian


II

My daimonian it is certain I could not have lived differently.
I would have perished if not for you. Your incantation
Would resound in my ear, fill me,
And I could only repeat it, instead of thinking
About my bad character, the decline of the world,
Or about a lost laundry ticket.
And it seems that while others loved,
Strove, hated, despaired,
I have only been busy with listening intently
To your unclear notes, to change them into words.
I had to accept my fate, called today karna,
For it was as it was, though I did not choose it--
And get up every day to honor work,
Even if there is no guilt of mine in it and no merit.
--czeslaw milosz

Breathtaking, thank you.
Where are you always sneakin' off to dreams...?

And Yet The Books by Czeslaw Milosz

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

Thank you muchly, Dreams of Red! Czeslaw Milosz is just wonderful!