A Poem for "the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust"

A Song on the End of the World

BY CZESLAW MILOSZ

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.

Warsaw, 1944

Czeslaw Milosz ranks among the most respected figures in twentieth-century Polish literature, as well as one of the most respected contemporary poets in the world, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. He was born in Lithuania, where his parents moved temporarily to escape the political upheaval in their native Poland. As an adult, he left Poland due to the oppressive Communist regime that came to power following World War II and has lived in the United States since 1960. Milosz's poems, novels, essays, and other works are written in his native Polish and translated by the author and others into English. Having lived under the two great totalitarian systems of modern history, national socialism and communism, Milosz writes of the past in a tragic, ironic style that nonetheless affirms the value of human life. While the faith of his Roman Catholic upbringing has been severely tested, it has remained intact. Terrence Des Pres, writing in the Nation, stated that "political catastrophe has defined the nature of our . . . [age], and the result—the collision of personal and public realms—has produced a new kind of writer. Czeslaw Milosz is the perfect example. In exile from a world which no longer exists, a witness to the Nazi devastation of Poland and the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, Milosz deals in his poetry with the central issues of our time: the impact of history upon moral being, the search for ways to survive spiritual ruin in a ruined world

TRANSLATED BY ANTHONY MILOSZ

Spring Buds

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

And went on in sunlight

from, "the Wasteland" By TS Elliot

On this crisp ,cool April day;

Spring Buds,by me

What can i tell you

about the buds of springtime,

that they are stalwart,courageous,determined,

firm,persist ant,lionhearted,obstinate

resolute,spirited,

that they are hearty,hardy, bendable,crisp,

resilient,snappable,crackable,defiant,

that they are pliable,willowy

pliant,supple.

Birth,

Shall i say;

oracular,premonitory ,preparation for;

twisting,turning,living,breathing,breeding

growing,giving,receiving

surviving.

A bud forms at the tip

of a branch,

It must;snap,retract,recoil,emerge,whittle

forge forth

April of forty four degrees, thirty two degrees,

seventy two degrees,eighty degrees,

April of sun,rain,sleet,snow,hail

sun

April of endurance,abeyance,exuberance

patience,hope.

If not for April

summer could not follow.

"Lostness"

Lost by Stephen Dobyns A cry was heard among the trees, not a man's, something deeper. The forest extended up one side the mountain and down the other. None wanted to ask what had made the cry. A bird, one wanted to say, although he knew it wasn't a bird. The sun climbed to the mountaintop, and slid back down the other side. The black treetops against the sky were like teeth on a saw. They waited for it to come a second time. It's lost, one said. Each thought of being lost and all the years that stretched behind. Where had wrong turns been made? Soon the cry came again. Closer no This was the poem for "Poem a Day " in my email today."Each thought of being lost and all the years that stretched behind".This poem reminded me of the dialogue between the man and the boy in Cormac Mc Carthy's book, "the Road". Being lost can be frightening,magnifies a state of aloneness and longings for what we had and may not have cherished or cared for enough.. Sometimes getting or being lost just happens out of nowhere with no design,no planning,but sometimes we are active partners in that state of "being lost or losing'. For me ,those are the hardest ones as by our design we cause undue self suffering....

"a phone moment"

again from "the Writer's Almanac"

On the Phone

by Michael Milburn

That whooshing, watery,
radio-being-tuned sound
tells me he's outdoors
on his way somewhere
and I'd better talk fast.
I can't remember
the last time I phoned him
without dreading that countdown
to when he says, "I'm going
into the subway, Dad, got to go."
Lately, he even calls me from the street—
a convenient way to keep
his keeping in touch short. He's right—
I'd talk to him for an hour,
marching through my pent-up questions.
It tires me, wanting him so much,
the resistance with which he responds.
I bet there's a girl out there
he'd duck into a lobby
to keep speaking to
as long as she desired. Instead,
he tells me that I'm breaking up,
and there's a sound
as if he's dropped the phone
into a rushing river, which then
pulls him in too, his life.

"On the Phone" by Michael Milburn, from Drive By Heart. © Word Press, 2009. Reprinted with permission

how many times do we place our phones in a position as a means of distance rather than inter-connectedness,i know i am the recipient or the creator of such "phone moments"

Thanks to the poet for crystalizing a moment in words that can be so true about who we can be sometimes and how elude each other....

April ......babbling and strewing flowers

.Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death But what does that signify? Not only under the ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots.Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers

Colors of Spring

The earth awakens in a cloak of vibrant colors;

aurulent-gold colored

albicant-whitish,becoming white

citreous-lemom colored,lemony

citrine-dark greenish yellow

eau-di-nil-pale green color

flavescent-yellowish, turning yellow

goldenrod-dark golden yellow

hyacinthine-of blue-purple

ianthine-of violet color

jessamy-yellow like a jasmine

luteolus-yellowish

luteous-golden yellow

lutescent-yellowish

meline-canary yellow

porraceous-leek geen

tilleul-yellowish green

violaceous-violet colored

virescent-becoming green

virid-green

vitellary-bright yellow

willowish-of the color of willow leaves

chloranthus-green flowered

estriatus-beautiful green color

galbinus-yellowish green

laetesvirens-bright vivid green

springtime.......

Every time you have a spiritual experience you return a different person, from Tim Feldman & Kino Mac Gregor

I have been in yoga zone for many a day lately.I am slowly returning to the rhythm of my daily life. I had the fortunate experience of being taught for a week with Tim Feldman and Kino Mac Gregor in the "old shala style" tradition of ashtanga yoga. I have learned much and expanded my mind , breath and asana practice. Although ,much of the teachings are often about the physical nature of yoga and breathing, what is so unique about Kino and Tim is their dedication to teaching "the human being, the everlasting soul of who we are. They impart wisdom,knowledge,experience,kindness,compassion and generosity. They model the tradition of yoga to be practiced in all aspects of our life,not only on the mat.Here are some words from Tim and Kino that I carry with me now;

- First,train the mind to pause,

-Cultivate an attitude of friendliness to those who have attained the results we want.

-Cultivate an attitude of compassion,"karuna" to the suffering

-Cultivate an attitude of disregard to evil and those who create suffering

-Maintain peacefulness in your life regardless of the experience in your life

-Only someone who has experienced the dark places can truly teach

-Knowledge that you know is true no one can talk you out of

In gratitude to Tim and Kino and those who shared their practice,energy and breath with me,Om Shanti