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“On Angels” by Czesław Miłosz 🇵🇱🇺🇸 (30 Jun 1911 – 14 Aug 2004)
Translated from the Polish
All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe you,
messengers.
​
There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems.
​
Shorts is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.
​
They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.
​
The voice—no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.
​
I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:
​
day draw near
another one
do what you can.