The Rising Of The Sun Poem by Czeslaw Milosz

The Rising Of The Sun

Rating: 3.5


I did not expect to live in such an unusual moment.
When the God of thunders and of rocky heights,
The Lord of hosts, Kyrios Sabaoth,
Would humble people to the quick,
Allowing them to act whatever way they wished,
Leaving to them conclusions, saying nothing.
It was a spectacle that was indeed unlike
The agelong cycle of royal tragedies.
Roads on concrete pillars, cities of glass and cast iron,
Airfields larger than tribal dominions
Suddenly ran short of their essence and disintegrated
Not in a dream but really, for, subtracted from themselves,
They could only hold on as do things which should not last.
Out of trees, field stones, even lemons on the table,
Materiality escaped and their spectrum
Proved to be a void, a haze on a film.
Dispossessed of its objects, space was swarming.
Everywhere was nowhere and nowhere, everywhere.
Letters in books turned silver-pale, wobbled, and faded
The hand was not able to trace the palm sign, the river sign, or the sign of ibis.
A hullabaloo of many tongues proclaimed the mortality of the language.
A complaint was forbidden as it complained to itself.
People, afflicted with an incomprehensible distress,
Were throwing off their clothes on the piazzas so that nakedness might call
For judgment.
But in vain they were longing after horror, pity, and anger.
Neither work nor leisure
Was justified,
Nor the face, nor the hair nor the loins
Nor any existence

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 14 March 2016

Materiality escaped and their spectrum Proved to be a void, a haze on a film. Dispossessed of its objects, space was swarming. Everywhere was nowhere and nowhere, everywhere.- - - - - - -impressive lines

16 0 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 14 March 2016

Nor any existence; to face the ways of nature. Nice work.

0 1 Reply
Ratnakar Mandlik 14 March 2016

A great poem penned by a master spirit that has witnessed so many horrifying things.

0 1 Reply
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