On Prayer Poem by Czeslaw Milosz

On Prayer

Rating: 5.0


You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Marilyn Hochfield 12 March 2009

Wonderful poem, and thanks to Robert Hass, so fine a poet himself, who has given us English speakers so much of the great Milosz.

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