Day 1332
Slip and dip
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 now1.
That’s part of of a lovely poem by Czeslaw Milosz, whose experiences in Vilnius and Poland during World War II and under Commust rule didn’t keep him from having a great time in California and becoming an American citizen. A national treasure.
It’s been a poetry and music week. Which brings me to Frank O’Hara and Memoir of Sergei O, in Lunch Poems, his first book.
Anyway, there is a line…
