Letters
Milosz Poem
Veni Creator
Come, Holy Spirit,bending or not bending the grasses,appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snowcovers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.I am only a man: I need visible signs.I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in churchlifts its hand, only once, just once, for me.But I understand that signs must be human,therefore call one man, anywhere on earth,not me—after all I have some decency—and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you.Czeslaw Milosz (translated with Robert Pinsky)
© 1988 by Czeslaw Milosz Royalties, Inc.
Read at the Poetry Foundation