Sunday, February 17, 2008

Czeslaw Milosz

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In Music

Wailing of a flute, a little drum.
A small wedding cortege accompanies a couple
Going past clay houses in the street of a village.
In the dress of the bride much white satin.
How many renunciations to sew it, once in a lifetime.
The dress of the groom black, festively stiff.
The flute tells something of the hills, parched, the color of deer.
Hens scratch in dry mounds of manure.

I have not seen it, I summoned it listenng to music.
The instruments play for themselves, in their own eternity.
Lips blow, agile fingers work, so short a time.
Soon afterward the pageant sinks into the earth.
But the sound endures, autonomous, triumphant,
Forever visited by, each time returning,
The warm touch of cheeks, interiors of houses,
And particular human lives
Of which the chronicles make no mention.



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