2024-11-24

 
--Czeslaw Milosz (trans. Robert Hass)

The word faith means when someone sees
A dew – drop or a floating leaf,
and know that they are, because they have to be.

And even if you dreamed, or
closed your eyes and wished,

The world would still be what it was,
and the leaf would still be carried down the river.

It means that when someone’s foot is hurt
By a sharp rock,

He also knows that rocks are here so they can hurt our feet.
Look, see the long shadow cast by the tree;
And flowers and people throw shadows on the earth:
What has no shadow has no strength to live.


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