Poem Review: Czeslaw Milosz - "Encounter"

Czeslaw Milosz

Poem of the Day: Czeslaw Milosz - Encounter

As I was reading Czeslaw Milosz - Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004, I encountered the poem called Encounter and decided to stop and write a blog post about it. 

My first impressions are that Milosz really spoke in universal terms. He wanted to anchor the reader to a situation and then subvert the situation by saying, “Today neither of them is alive. Not the hare, nor the man that made the gesture…”

The combination of using a small animal such as a hare side by side with a man suggests a frailty to the species. To my understanding, as a son of Polish immigrants who talked with them about reading Milosz in grade school, I see Czeslaw as commenting in Poland during the time. He signed off the piece by Wilno 1936, and from what I could gather there was a peasants uprising/strike during that place and time period. Despite the piece speaking on Polish matters it is universal and resonant. I found it to strongly tackle the theme of impermanence. 

When Milosz says, “Oh my love, where are they, where are they going–” he questions our life after death or the fleeting nature of life. What really connected me to this piece were my thoughts on how it applies to the current generation and how the beauty of such art might be lost. The striking opening Milosz paints:

“We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn. A red wing rose in the darkness.”

He explicitly gives us the situation. The frozen fields mean rural Poland to me, he gives time– at dawn. “The red wing rose in the darkness” sounds to me like a bird.

//The final line is quite complex: The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles. // I ask not out of sorrow but of wonder.

Clearly the “flash of a hand” is again speaking to our fleeting lives (quick life and quick death), the pebbles are a symbol to show a small insignificant object. 

This character, presumably Milosz, sees this out of wonder. Where do they go after death? Why did everything end so fast? 

This piece made me reflect on my own poetry. I sometimes try to capture a feeling of universality, at least for my generation (gen z) but not to the eloquent level of such a master. Though Milosz’s poetry is clearly richly layered with depth and meaning that this English translation might not transfer it well, but maybe someday I’ll read the original Polish.

• CM

Buy Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004 here: https://amzn.to/42tHkzy