When the sun rises
it illuminates stupidity and guilt
which are hidden in the nooks of memory
and invisible at noon.

Here walks a many-tiered man.
On his upper floors a morning crispness
and underneath, dark chambers
which are frightening to enter.

He asks forgiveness
from the spirits of the absent ones
who twitter far below
at the tables of buried cafes.

What does that man do?
He is frightened of a verdict,
now, for instance,
or after his death.

COMMENTS

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One response to “Many-Tiered Man – Czeslaw Milosz”

1. Ken says:

   09/07/2011 at 12:08 pm

   One of the things I love in Milosz’s poetry is this combination of blunt humility (by the time he wrote that poem he was a Nobel Prize winner) and reverence and affection for the dead and gone.

   Reply