An ant trampled, and above it clouds.
A trampled ant and above it a column of azure sky.
And within the distance, marking its blue steps,
The Vistula or the Dnieper on its mattress of granite.
That is the picture mirrored within the water:
A metropolis ruined, and above it clouds.
A ruined metropolis and above it a column of azure sky.
And within the distance, stepping over blue thresholds,
The stays of Historical past or the Spring of delusion.
A lifeless subject mouse, and beetle gravediggers.
On the footpath, working, a seven-year-old pleasure.
Within the backyard a rainbow-colored ball and laughing faces
And the yellow luster of Might or April.
That is the picture mirrored within the water:
A defeated tribe, armored gravediggers.
Alongside the highway, working, a millennial pleasure,
A subject of cornflowers blooming after the fireplace,
And the silence is blue, on a regular basis, regular.
That is the picture mirrored within the water.
— Warsaw, 1942–Washington, D.C., 1948
This poem, translated into English for the primary time, is included in a brand new quantity of Czesław Miłosz’s work, Poet within the New World. It seems in The Atlantic’s March 2025 print version.
David Frick is the writer of Kith, Kin, and Neighbors.
Robert Hass is the writer of seven books of poetry and co-translated a number of volumes of poetry with Czesław Miłosz.
By Czesław Miłosz
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