Interlude - "Encounter," Czesław Miłosz (1936)

Cuttlefish reminds us that this is National Poetry Month. I’m writing a poem which I might or might not complete before May, but I’ll also post a few this month from famous poets. This one by Czesław Miłosz I came across recently while organizing some old files. I’d torn it out of a magazine several years ago:

Encounter

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.