Silence

For Czesław Miłosz

To live to be a witness—it wasn’t your only reason to live.But before the last trial had taken placeyou couldn’t easily decide to die.In that tragic century when the mirror had changed shape,lonely masks and lies were concealedbehind the darkness, at the same timehidden in the shadows of light.You sipped on suffering and misfortune,choosing exile, a road further than you’d imagined.People thought the walls of your hometownhad already become ancient ruins. But you never gave up without  a fight.Fate caused a miracle to occur again:in the early morning, your shouts didn’t die.In the silver depths of fish scales and feathers, only wordssuffered through the flames of hell.That’s the radiance of the Polish language: it makes yousee rough mountain ranges at dawn and enables the soulto be like Adam Michiewicz,who even after standing so long in the stillness of the grasslands  could still hearthe sounds coming from Lithuania. Please believe in the power of  your mother tongue.Perhaps it is another of your eternal homelands.No exile or judgment could defeat it.Thank you for the simplicity and plainness of all your poems, andfor your lengthy silence after suffering loss. In this age, still oneof human rationality, it was you who made us understandthat truth and justice won’t ever end.You are not an accident of fate, but your arrivalallowed the shame and despair of life to crossthe final threshold.