Notebook: Bons By Lake Leman
Red beeches, shining poplars
And steep spruce behind October fog.
In the valley the lake steams. There is snow
Already on the hillsides of the other shore.
Of life, what remains? Only this light
So that the eyes blink in the sunny noon
Of such a season. People say: this is,
And no capacity, no artfulness
Can reach beyond what is.
And memory, useless, loses its power.
Kegs smell of cider. The vicar mixes lime
With a spade in front of the school.
My son runs there on the path. Boys carry
Sacks of chestnuts gathered on the slope.
If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Says the prophet, let my right hand wither.
Underground tremors shake what is.
Mountains crack and forests break.
Touched by what was and what will be,
All that is crumbles into dust.
Violent, clean, the world is again in ferment
And neither ambition nor memory ceases.
Autumnal skies, the same in childhood,
In adulthood and old age. I won't
Stare at you. And you, landscapes,
Nourishing our hearts with mild warmth,
What poison dwells in you that you seal our lips,
Makes us sit with folded arms and the look
Of sleepy animals? Whoever finds order,
Peace, and an eternal moment in what is
Will vanish without a trace. Do you agree then
To abolish what is, and pluck from movement
The eternal moment as a gleam
On the current of the black river? I do.
— Bons, 1953
____________________________
Czeslaw Milosz
Poet in the New World
Poems, 1946-1953
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HASS AND DAVID FRICK
Ecco, 2025
