Awakened - Czeslaw Milosz

[Larry Robinson]

Awakened 


In advanced age, my health worsening, 
I woke up in the middle of the night, 
and experienced a feeling of happiness 
so intense and perfect that in all my life I had only felt its premonition. 
And there was no reason for it. 
It didn’t obliterate consciousness; 
the past which I carried was there, 
together with my grief. 
And it was suddenly included, 
was a necessary part of the whole. 
As if a voice were repeating: 
“You can stop worrying now; 
everything happened just as it had to. 
You did what was assigned to you, 
and you are not required anymore 
to think of what happened long ago.” 
The peace I felt was a closing of accounts 
and was connected with the thought of death. 
The happiness on this side was 
like an announcement of the other side. 
I realized that this was an undeserved gift 
and I could not grasp by what grace 
it was bestowed on me.

	- Czeslaw Milosz