A poem worth pondering, chosen in a time bearing witness to the invasion and destruction of our institutions.
In the essay collection The Witness of Poetry (1983), Milosz stresses the importance of Poland’s cultural heritage and history in shaping his work. “My corner of Europe,” he states, “owing to the extraordinary and lethal events that have been occurring there, comparable only to violent earthquakes, affords a peculiar perspective. As a result, all of us who come from those parts appraise poetry slightly differently than do the majority of my audience, for we tend to view it as a witness and participant in one of mankind’s major transformations.” [Cited with gratitude to The Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/czeslaw-milosz]