When She Comes Poem by O V de L Milosz

When she comes - will her eyes go green, gray,
Gray or green in the river?
The hours will be new in the archaic future,
New, but hardly novel -
Old hours: one has seen, dreamed, spoken them all!
I pity you the knowledge...

There will be something of the present and its street-sounds
Just as today and always - stern ordeals -
And odors, depending on the season, September's, April's,
And the false sky, and the clouds in the river;

And words, depending on the moment, spirited, broken,
Under skies arranged correspondingly,
For we shall have lived a great deal, shall have pretended to live such a great deal
When she comes with her eyes of rain over that river.

There will be (weary voice, impotent smile)
The moment we now have, senile, sterile, dry,
The pulsing of eternity, sister of silence;
The moment we now have, just as we have it now.

Yesterday, ten years ago, today, in a month -
Frightful words, cliches, but what does it matter.
Drink, sleep, die - one must escape from himself
In some way or another...