Gift
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stooping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.
Berkeley, 1971
Czesław Miłosz
This poem is from the exceptional anthology, The Place that Inhabits Us, from Sixteen Rivers Press, poems about living here in the bay area. I especially love the line: “To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.” Such economy to express the mixture of regret and acceptance one can come to with age. It says something about the quality of the poems that I simply opened the book randomly and picked this one.