This is an easy column to write. A previous column I wrote about the great Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, drew a lovely response from readers who told me by notes, emails, even phone calls, overseas and at home, that they enjoyed this poet very much.
I was surprised. Some said they would be looking to get his works. And some asked me to give a few more examples of his poetry.
So this column simply consists of my favourite of all Czeslaw Milosz’s poems. It was written when he was a young man, trapped in Warsaw 1944 when not only his world but all civilization seemed to be collapsing.
A Song on the End of the World
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering
net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows
are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as
it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields
under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the
edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in
the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes
nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the
air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning
and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs
and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening
now.
As long as the sun and the moon
are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a
rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening
now.
Only a white-haired old man,
who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s
much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his
tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the
world,
There will be no other end of the
world.
Milosz wrote that beautiful poem in the midst of death and destruction. Whatever our circumstances, there is always beauty – and there is always good work to do, mending the nets, binding the tomatoes.
