[lit-ideas] Czeslaw Milosz

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "LIT-IDEAS" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 11:21:03 -0500

Czeslaw Milosz is dead.  I heard him read once, here in Memphis.  That was
10 years ago or more.  He was the kind of man I wish I could be.  Here's one
of his, presented as a salute:


A CONFESSION


My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman's body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I?  Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man?  Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me?  For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress's neck.
Flawed and aware of it.  Desiring greatness,
Able to recognize greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.

                   --  Czeslaw Milosz


I'll be gone for awhile.  Don't have any fun without me, please
Mike Geary
Memphis


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