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Polish Poetry: Milosz, Herbert, & Kamienska on Suffering & Insight

Polish Poetry: Milosz, Herbert, & Kamienska on Suffering & Insight

Last updated on: August 18, 2014 at 3:04 pm by Artur Rosman

Polish Poetry: Milosz, Herbert, & Kamienska on Suffering & Insight 2014-08-18T15:04:54-07:00 Artur Rosman

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ecce Homo, St. Albert Chmielowski , 1881

Right now I have several friends who are going through extreme suffering. There aren’t words to describe their conditions both because their pain goes beyond words and I don’t have the full details.

Poets frequently capture what is beyond the grasp of my own thinking and writing. And so here are some variations on the topic of suffering and insight (or lack thereof) from the pages of Polish poetry.

I ask you for prayers.

BODY

by Czeslaw Milosz in Facing the River

The human condition is not pain only.

Yet pain rules us and has much power.

Wise thoughts fail in its presence.

Starry skies go out.

From the center of the anatomical atlas

Where liver-red and clear-red of lungs

Meet cylindrical flesh-color of intestines,

Heralds of pain proceed with their muted calls,

From defenseless guardian posts at the frontier of the skin

Runs the alarm of being touched by steel or fire.

No chitinous or horn armor.

Nakedness under dresses and the masks of dancers.

And our obsession of undressing them on the stage

To know what they are when they pretend.

Scarlet liquor under the sun of the heart

Circulates, warms up, pulsates.

Visions, landscapes move to its rhythm

As does the brain, a gray moon, Luna.

On a gynecological chair open knees.

Defenseless viscera shattered by childbirth.

And the first scream, terror of exile into the world,

On a frozen river, in a stony city.

THORNS AND ROSES

by Zbigniew Herber in Elegy for Departure

Saint Ignatius

pale and fiery

passing by a rose

flung himself on the bush

mutilating his flesh

with the bell of his black frock

he wished to stifle

the beauty of the world

which gushed from earth as from a wound

and lying at the bottom

of the cradle of thorns

he saw

that the blood flowing from his brow

was clotting on his lashes

in the shape of a rose

and the blind hand

seeking out thorns

was pierced through

by petals’ soft touch

the defrauded saint wept

amid flowers’ mockeries

thorns and roses

roses and thorns

we seek happiness

from THE SILENCE OF JOB

by Anna Kamienska in Astonishments

Job

you whose mouth was

eloquent as ripples of rain

when you were arguing with God

about your morsel of life

why were you silent

when you got back everything

life health riches

almost a second happiness

Why don’t you protest now

You became as meek as the sea-grass

silent as a stone on sand

You seem to scowl when you look

mutter when you talk

You had a mouth full of arguments

like a harlot hurling insults

when you clamored for your due

Your loud No resounded to the heavens

your Yes is like the peep of a night bird

Explain why misery injury and suffering

are fluent as teachers

while an everyday calm

searches for words

stammering like a schoolboy…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e39UmEnqY8

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