A HARVEST BOOK “A magnificent collection of short poems that range widely across time and continents, from eighth century China to contemporary America.” —SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE A BOOK OF LUMINOUS THINGS AN INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CZESLAW MILOSZ WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATUREA Book of Luminous ThingsOTHER BOOKS BY CZESLAW MILOSZ The Captive Mind Selected Poems Native Realm The Issa Valley Emperor of the Earth Visions from San Francisco Bay Bells in Winter Separate Notebooks The Unattainable Earth Collected Poems The Land of Ulro Provinces The Witness of Poetry Beginning with My Streets A Year of the Hunter Facing the RiverA Book of Luminous Things AN INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY Edited and with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz A HARVEST BOOK HARCOURT, INC. Orlando Austin New York San Diego LondonCopyright © 1996 by Czeslaw Milosz All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com|contact or mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777. Permissions acknowledgments appear on pp. 307-314. www.HarcourtBooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ‘A Book of luminous things: an international anthology of poetry/edited and with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz. pcm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-15-100169-9 ISBN 978-0-15-600574-6 (pbk.) 1, Poetry—Collections. I. Milosz, Czeslaw. PNOLOLBS85 1996 95-8060 808.81—de20 Text set in Spectrum Designed by Lori McThomas Buley Printed in the United States of America First Harvest edition 1998 DOC 20ACKNOWLEDGMENTS wish to express my gratitude to persons who helped me in compiling this anthology. My friend and co-translator of my poetry, Robert Hass, encouraged me and worked with me on the English versions of some poems. At his suggestion, we jointly taught a graduate seminar in the English Department of the Uni- versity of California at Berkeley in 1993 using the poems of this anthology as material for our sessions. The enthusiastic reactions of students gave me a new assurance as to the value of my judg- ments. Another Berkeley poet and friend, Leonard Nathan, closely followed my endeavors and drew my attention to several poems fitting my purpose. Work on the anthology, from its beginning, received warm support from my wife, Carol, who also offered advice, helped type the early manuscript draft, and organized the many details nec- essary to complete this project. Kimball Fenn, a graduate student in the English Department at Berkeley, brought her intelligent assistance, competence, and diligence to typing, editing, and com- piling the permissions’ citations for the manuscript.CONTENTS INTRODUCTION EPIPHANY D. H. Lawrence = Maximus Kikaku Issa Jean Follain Music of Spheres Carlos Drummond de Andrade In the Middle of the Road NATURE David Wagoner The Author of American Ornithology Sketches a Bird, Now Extinct Loons Mating Jean Follain A Taxidermist Li-Young Lee Irises Robert Creeley Like They Say Adam Zagajewski Moths Mary Oliver The Kingfisher Wislawa Szymborska In Praise of Self-Deprecation Bour in the Morning Theodore Roethke — Moss-Gathering Denise Levertov Living Robert Francis Waxwings Philip Levine A Sleepless Night Robert Hass Late Spring Zbigniew Machej Orchards in July W.S. Merwin Dusk in Winter D. H. Lawrence — Butterfly Gary Snyder Dragonfly Theodore Roethke — Carnations Robinson Jeffers Carmel Point CONTENTS + xv eu aae viiGalway Kinnell Daybreak D. H. Lawrence — Mystic Robert Morgan Honey Joanne Kyger Destruction Mary Oliver Wild Geese Wistawa Szymborska Seen from Ahove Jane Hirshfield A Story Jean Follain Face the Animal Jorge Guillén Flight Emily Dickinson A Narrow Fellow in the Grass Robert Frost The Most of It Anna Swir The Sea and the Man THE SECRET OF A THING Walt Whitman I Am the Poet William Blake — From “Milton” Walt Whitman The Runner A Farm Picture Su Tung Po Ona Pamting by Wang the Clerk of Yen Ling Robert Morgan _Bellrope Judah Al-Harizi The Lightning The Sun The Lute Robinson Jeffers Boats in Fog Evening Ebb Robert Hass The Image Rolf Jacobsen Cobalt Wallace Stevens Study of Two Pears William Carlos Williams The Red Wheelbarrow Wistawa Szymborska View with a Gram of Sand Francis Ponge The Frog Aleksander Wat Facing Bormard Muso Soseki Magnificent Peak Denise Levertov Witness TRAVEL Valery Larbaud — Images Blaise Cendrars Aleutian Islands Fish Cove Vili + CONTENTS 35 37 38 40 al 2 8 “4 45 46 47Harvest South Frisco-City LiPo Ancient Air Chang Chi Coming at Night to a Fisherman's Hut Po Chii-l Starting Early A Dream of Mountaineering LiPo Ancient Air Wang Wei Song of Marching with the Army Watching the Hunt Chang Yang-hao Recalling the Past at T'ung Pass Rolf Jacobsen Express Tram Antonio Machado Rainbow at Night William Stafford — Vacation John Haines The Train Stops at Healy Fork Bronislaw Maj Seen Fleetingly, from a Train Edward Field A Journey Ch'in Kuan Along the Grand Canal Wang Wei Moming, Sailing into Xinyang John Haines On the Mountain Jaan Kaplinski We started home, my son and I PLACES Wang Chien The South Tu Fu Travellmg Northward Po Chit After Collecting the Autumn Taxes Rain Tu Fu Another Spring Su Man Shu Exile in Japan Joseph Brodsky In the Lake District Odysseus to Telemachus Louis Simpson After Midnight Allen Ginsberg A Strange New Cottage im Berkeley James Applewhite Prayer for My Son Po Chi-] Madly Singing in the Mountains Elizabeth Bishop Brazil, January 1, 1502 Rolf Jacobsen The Catacombs in San Callisto Gunnar Ekélof Greece Tomas Transtromer — Syros CONTENTS 81 82 83 84 85 87 88 89 90 1 92 %3 5 97 98 100 Tol 102 103, 105 109 110 m m 13 14 5 16 017 U8 119 no RI 14 15 126Linda Gregg Night Music Adam Zagajewski Auto Mirror Sandor Weores The Plain Tomas Transtromer Outskirts David Kirby To a French Structuralst Antonio Machado Summer Night Wang Wei A White Turtle under a Waterfall Ou Yang Hsiu Fisherman Liu Tsung-Yuian Old Fisherman Wang Wei Magnolia Basin THE MOMENT ‘Walt Whitman — Cavalry Crossing a Ford Aloysius Bertrand The Mason Kenneth Rexroth Signature of All Things The Heart of Herakles Tu Fa Sunset Winter Dawn South Wind Clear Afier Rain Gary Snyder Late October Camping in the Sawtooths Keith Wilson Dusk in My Backyard Ted Kooser. Late Lights in Minnesota Tomas Transtrémer Tracks Rolf Jacobsen Rubber Al Zolynas Zen of Housework Bronislaw Maj An August Afiernoon Raymond Carver The Window Jean Follain Buying Black Meat School aid Nature Linda Gregg A Dark Thing inside the Day Aleksander Wat From “‘Songs of a Wanderer" Oscar V. de L. Milosz The Bridge Jaan Kaplinski My Wife and Children Walt Whitman By the Bivouac's Ftful Flame Eamon Grennan Woman at Lit Window Charles Simic Empire of Dreams Po Chii-I Sleeping on Horseback X + CONTENTS 7 18 129 BO BI B2 33 B4 135 136 137 141 142 144 146 147 148 149 150 15 152 153 154 155 156 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 166 167 168 169 WI 172Wayne Dodd Of Rain and Air Sandor Weores Rain PEOPLE AMONG PEOPLE Wang Wei Song about Xi Shi Dancing Woman, Cockfighter Husband, and the Impoverished Sage Tu Fu To Pi Ssu Yoo Mei Yao Ch’en A Dream at Night Seamus Heaney From “Clearances,” In Memoriam M.K.H. (191-1984) Constantine Cavafy Supplication Walt Whitman — From “I Sing the Body Electnc” As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods A Sight im Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim Dirge for Two Veterans William Carlos Williams — Proletarian Portrait To a Poor Old Woman Wang Chien The New Wife Al Zolynas Love in the Classroom Rainer Maria Rilke Going Blind Leonard Nathan Toast Bladder Song W.S. Merwin Utterance Steve Kowit Notice Anna Swir The Same Inside Philip Larkin The Card-Players Walt Whitman From “The Sleepers” Anna Swir I Wash the Shirt Sharon Olds I Go Back to May 1937 Tadeusz Rozewicz A Voice Thomas Merton An Elegy for Emest Hemingway Walt Whitman A Nowseless Patient Spider WOMAN'S SKIN Steve Kowit In the Morning Chu Shu Chen — Morning Steve Kowit Cosmetics Do No Good Li Ch’ing-chao —_Hopelessness Anna Swir The Greatest Love She Does Not Remember CONTENTS 3 174 U5 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 190 191 192 193 195 197 198 199 200 201 202 204 205 207 208 210 2 215 216 27 218 219 220 xtLinda Gregg Adult Anna Swir Thank You, My Fate The Second Madrigal Steve Kowit When He Pressed His Lips Jean Follain A Mirror Emperor Ch'ien-wen of Liang Getting Up in Winter Steve Kowit What Chord Did She Pluck Denise Levertov A Woman Meets an Old Lover May Swenson Question Robinson Jeffers Cremation Tadeusz Rozewicz A Sketch for a Modern Love Poem ‘Anna Swir I Talk to My Body Troubles with the Soul at Morsing Calisthenics T Starve My Belly for a Sublime Purpose SITUATIONS Tu Fu Dejeumer sur I'Herbe Joanne Kyger And with March a Decade in Bolinas Aleksander Wat A Joke Po Chil The Philosophers: Lao-tzu Golden Bells Afier Getting Drunk, Becoming Sober in the Night Wayne Dodd Of His Life Raymond Carver Wine Franz Wright Depiction of Childhood James Tate Teaching the Ape to Write Wislawa Szymborska In Praise of My Sister Lawrence Raab The Sudden Appearance of a Monster at a Window Tu Fu Coming Home Late at Night Snow Storm Bronislaw Maj A Leaf Anna Swir Poetry Reading NONATTACHMENT Raymond Carver The Cobweb Denise Levertov Eye Mask Po Chii-I Climbing the Ling-Ying Terrace and Looking North Eskimo (anonymous) Magic Words Nachman of Bratzlav From “The Torah of the Void’" xii © CONTENTS 221 222 223 224 225 226 27 228 229 230 231 233 24 235 237 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 250 251 252 234 256 257 258 259) 261 265 266 267 268 269Jelaluddin Rumi Little by little, wean yourself W.S. Merwin for the Annversary of My Death Yoruba Tribe Invocation of the Creator Chuang Tzu Man Is Born in Tao The Need to Win Jelaluddin Rumi Out beyond ideas LiPo The Birds Have Vanished Denise Levertov Contraband Ch’ang Yu A Ringing Bell Wang Wei Lazy about Writing Poems A Farewell Drifting on the Lake Tu Fu Visitors Po Chit Lodging with the Old Man of the Stream Miron Bialoszewski A Ballad of Going Down to the Store Muso Soseki Old Man at Leisure Kenneth Rexroth From ‘The City of the Moon" A Long Lifetime Southern Bushmen The Day We Die Anna Kamieriska A Prayer That Will Be Answered HISTORY Leopold Staff Foundations Anna Swir I'm Afraid of Fire Aleksander Wat From Persian Parables Julia Hartwig Above Us Shu Ting Perhaps Ryszard Krynicki I Can't Help You Zbigniew Herbert Elegy of Potinbras Moushegh Ishkhan The Armenian Language Is the Home of the Armenian Naomi Lazard Ordinance on Arrval Constantine Cavafy Waiting for the Barbarians Index of Authors Index of Titles or First Lines 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 296 297 298 299 300 301 303 304 305 315 37 CONTENTS « xiiiINTRODUCTION have always felt that a poet participates in the management of I the estate of poetry, of that in his own language and also that of world poetry. Thinking about that estate, such as it is at the present moment, I decided I could contribute to its possessions provided, however, that instead of theory, I brought to it some- thing of practice. Poetry in this century is alive, and I value many poets, some of whom I have translated into Polish, beginning with T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land and Burnt Norton. Yet no poem by T. S. Eliot is included in this book, and this fact elucidates my purpose. I rejected in advance the idea of doing justice to the canon of today’s American and World poetry. Many poems that I like or admire are not in this anthology because they do not correspond to my criteria of size and accessibility to the reader. I leave to others the exploration of the whole territory of poetry in its richness and variety. I, in- stead, carve from it a province of my own. For many decades I have been an observer of and a participant in revolts, movements, schools, whatever their names, in the lit- erature of the twentieth century. Here, I try to forget about those trends. My proposition consists in presenting poems, whether con- temporary or a thousand years old, that are, with few exceptions, short, clear, readable and, to use a compromised term, realist, that is, loyal toward reality and attempting to describe it as concisely as possible. Thus they undermine the widely held opinion that poetry is a misty domain eluding understanding. I act like an art collector who, to spite the devotees of abstract art, arranges an exhibition of figurative painting, putting together canvases from various epochs to prove, since those from the past and from the INTRODUCTION + XVpresent meet in an unexpected way, that certain lines of devel- opment, different from those now universally accepted, can be traced, My intention is not so much to defend poetry in general, but, rather, to remind readers that for some very good reasons it may be of importance today. These reasons have to do with our troubles in the present phase of our civilization. It has happened that we have been afflicted with a basic dep- rivation, to such an extent that we seem to be missing some vital organs, even as we try to survive somehow. Theology, science, philosophy, though they attempt to provide cures, are not very effective “In that dark world where gods have lost their way” (Roethke). They are able at best to confirm that our affliction is not invented. I have written elsewhere of this deprivation as one of the consequences brought about by science and technology that pollutes not only the natural environment but also the human imagination. The world deprived of clear-cut outlines, of the up and the down, of good and evil, succumbs to a peculiar nihiliza- tion, that is, it loses its colors, so that grayness covers not only things of this earth and of space, but also the very flow of time, its minutes, days, and years. Abstract considerations will be of little help, even if they are intended to bring relief. Poetry is quite different. By its very nature it says: All those theories are untrue. Since poetry deals with the singular, not the general, it camnot— if it is good poetry—look at things of this earth other than as colorful, variegated, and exciting, and so, it cannot reduce life, with all its pain, horror, suffering, and ecstasy, to a unified tonality of boredom or complaint. By necessity poetry is therefore on the side of being and against nothingness. The place where I gathered my hoard is not without signi- ficance. To some degree it explains the contents. Berkeley has, probably, the best bookstores in America, and also good libraries, including the libraries of theological schools of various denomi- nations. Its university constantly reminds one that California faces the Pacific, something to which the number of students from Chi- nese, Japanese, or Vietnamese families testifies. To this should be XVi + INTRODUCTIONadded the role of Buddhism in the somewhat too syncretic mosaic of religions. Besides, Berkeley possesses a quite high density of poets per square mile. As a consequence of all this, its bookstores afford a good opportunity to browse in poetry. I have found there also many translations of Asian poets, who have sympathetic readers here. Those volumes distinguish themselves favorably upon the background of poetry written in our epoch. Old Chinese and Jap- anese poetry has exerted an influence upon American poetry since the beginning of this century, and became a field of competition for ambitious translators, among whom the best known are an Englishman, Sir Arthur Waley, and the California poet Kenneth Rexroth. What do we, shaped by a civilization so different, find in those masters, what attracts us to them in particular? Undoubtedly, what accounts for much is the very discovery that we can understand them, that through their lips eternal man speaks, that love, tran- sience, death were the same then as now. Yet what is also valuable for us in them is the reminder that man may relate to the world not just through confrontation. Perhaps Taoism and Buddhism, with their contemplative leanings, enabled poets to look at a thing and identify with it, strengthening in that way its being. The very reminder of it directs our attention toward similar attitudes within our civilization—and they are not rare, either in poetry or in painting. Paul Cézanne is considered a forerunner of twentieth-century painting. It is probable, though, that he, since he was inclined to outbursts of anger, would horribly abuse his successors for their betrayal of nature, his venerated mistress. He invoked Boileau and recited: Rien n'est beau que le vrai, le vrai seul est aimable (Beauty is only in the true, only the true is lovable). “My method, my code,” he declared, “is realism.” And against disintegration of the object into fragments in consequence of the discoveries of science, he would probably allow me to quote his opinion: “After all, am I not man? Whatever I do, I have the notion that this tree is a tree, this rock a rock, this dog a dog.” Or: “Nature is not on the surface, it is inside. Colors, on the surface, show that inside. They show the INTRODUCTION © XVii