(By Adam Zagajewski, Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh — © NYRB)

I read your poetry once more,

poems written by a rich man, understanding all,

and by a pauper, homeless,

an emigrant, alone.

You always want to say more

than we can, to transcend poetry, take flight,

but also to descend, to penetrate the place

where our timid, modest realm begins.

Your voice at times

persuades us,

if only for a moment,

that every day is holy

and that poetry, how to put it,

rounds our life,

completes it, makes it proud

and unafraid of perfect form.

I lay the book aside

at night and only then

the city’s normal tumult starts again,

somebody coughs or cries, somebody curses.

(Five by Milosz: A Conversation with Jeanne, A Poem for the End of the Century,
                       A Confession, Woe!, An Honest Description of Myself …)