1945
by Czeslaw Milosz
Feast of the Holy Seven Maccabee Children, Solomone Their Mother, & Eleazar Their Teacher
Anno Domini 2020, August 1
—You! the last Polish poet!—drunk, he embraced me,
My friend from the Avant-Garde, in a long military coat,
Who had lived through the war in Russia and, there, understood.
He could not have learned those things from Apollinaire,
Or Cubist manifestos, or the festivals of Paris streets.
The best cure for illusions is hunger, patience, and obedience.
In their fine capitals they still liked to talk.
Yet the twentieth century went on. It was not they
Who would decide what words were going to mean.
On the steppe, as he was binding his bleeding feet with a rag
He grasped the futile pride of those lofty generations.
As far as he could see, a flat, unredeemed earth.
Gray silence settled over every tribe and people.
After the bells of baroque churches, after a hand on a saber,
After disputes over free will, and arguments of diets.
I blinked, ridiculous and rebellious,
Alone with Jesus Mary against irrefutable power,
A descendant of ardent prayers, of gilded sculptures and miracles.
And I knew I would speak in the language of the vanquished
No more durable than old customs, family rituals,
Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.
Berkeley, 1985
*From New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001
(New York: Ecco, 1988), p. 490. Available for purchase at Eighth Day Books.
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