Looking for a poem.

March 11, 2009 4:21 PM

I'm thinking of a Czeslaw Milosz poem I read a few years ago in either a magazine or a book. It's written from the point of view of an old man, looking back over his life. He realizes that all the good things, all the bad things he's done in his life can be boiled down to one word: desire. I think it includes descriptions of the various things he's desired (food, women, et cetera). Any ideas?
posted by holdenjordahl to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

Best answer: It's called "Account."

Account
by Czeslaw Milosz

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own—but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.

Berkeley, 1980.

______________________

Actually very easy to find. It was the fourth hit for a google search of "Czeslaw Milosz" "old man" desire. Try google first next time.
posted by koeselitz at 4:31 PM on March 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

... or maybe that's not it; I notice you say you thought it had descriptions of the things he desired. That line ("But all of them would have one subject, desire") made me think that this was certainly it, but now I wonder... I'll keep looking.
posted by koeselitz at 4:33 PM on March 11, 2009

I don't know if Account is the one you mean, but it is one of my all-time favorite poems and I just had to testify, right here.
posted by thinkpiece at 5:09 PM on March 11, 2009

Best answer: This is probably not it, either.

Lessons - Czesław Miłosz

Since that moment when in a house with low eaves
A doctor from the town cut the navel-string
And pears dotted with white mildew
Reposed in their nests of luxuriant weeds,
I have been in the hands of humans. They could have strangled
My first scream, squeezed with a giant hand
The defenseless throat that aroused their tenderness.
From them I received the names of plants and birds,
I lived in their country that was not too barren,
Not too cultivated, with a field, a meadow,
And water in a boat moored behind a shed.

Their lessons met, it is true, with a barrier
Deep in myself and my will was dark,
Not very compliant with their intents or mine.
Others, whom I did not know or knew only by name,
Were pacing in me and I, terrified,
Heard, in myself, locked creaky rooms
That one should not peep into through a keyhole.
They did not mean much to me -- Kazimir, Hrehory
Or Emilia or Margareta.
But I had to reenact all by myself
Every flaw and sin of theirs. This humiliated me.
So that I wanted to shout: you are to blame
For my not being what I want and being what I am.

Sunlight would fall in my book upon Original Sin,
And more than once, when noon was humming in the grass
I would imagine the two of them, with my guilt,
Trampling a wasp beneath the apple tree in Eden.
posted by ellenaim at 6:07 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]