Czeslaw Milosz

NOTHING MORE

I ought to tell you some time how my view 
Of poetry has changed, and how it came about 
That today I think of myself as merely one 
Of those craftsmen or merchants of Imperial Japan 
Who composed poems on how the cherry-tree blossoms, 
On chrysanthemums and the full moon. 

If I could describe that courtyard of Venetian courtesans, 
One of them teasing a peacock with a twig, 
And could peel the silken drape and the sash studded with pearls 
From the full weight of a breast and from the reddish 
Stripe on a belly where the dress had been fastened —
At least as the captain of the galleons saw it 
Whose fleet laden with gold sailed into port that morning; 

And if at the same time I could enshrine their poor bones 
— Now laid in the graveyard whose gate the fat sea licks —
In words more durable than the last of their hair-combs 
Which in dust under the slab, alone, waits for the light, 

Then I would have no doubts. What can be gathered 
From stubborn matter? Nothing: at most, beauty. 
And therefore we should be content with cherry blossom, 
With chrysanthemums and the fullness of the moon 

1957

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