Lively As A Speeding Hearse Poem by gershon hepner

From human speech when moved by muteness
I make my odyssey in verse,
criticized sometimes for cuteness,
lively as a speeding hearse.

Meghan O’Rourke reviews Czeslaw Milosz’s final collection of poems, “Second Space, ” translated by Milosz and Robert Hass (Ecco) in the NYT Book Review on November 21,2004. She writes:

In ''Second Space, '' Milosz has evolved away from the densely musical verbiage of his earlier years, and is more partial than ever to single lines and couplets. These short stanzas are inherently well suited to non sequiturs, to jumps, to swerves in ratiocination, and much of this last work resounds with interstitial silence, as if the poet were preparing himself for a more enduring quietude:
From human speech to the muteness of verse, how far!
It spreads out, the valley, signs, lights.
The mild valley of those who are eternally alive.
They walk by green waters.
With red ink they draw on my breast
A heart and the signs of a kindly welcome.


11/21/04