Sunday 26 December 2010

Encounter - and Ollie - and moments in time

Ollie is taking time out on his walk through the snowy park to pose prettily - and the moment has been caught by Captain B's camera.

I think this is an appropriate time of year for another poem - this one by a Polish poet.


Encounter

by Czeslaw Milosz
 
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.


                                                         Wilno, 1936
 
Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee 




I love the "red wing" of the Winter sunrise. 

A poem is another way of  preserving a moment before it gets lost in time.

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