Two Poems by Czeslaw Milosz (for the Piotrs)

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) was a Polish poet and essayist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980, while living in Berkeley where his poem Gift was written.

He spent the last days of his life in Krakow, Poland.







Gift

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I walked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.


If There Is No God

If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother's keeper,
And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,
By saying there is no God.