Status Updates From Selected Poems

Part 4: The poems were 70% optimistic 30% reflections on how culture and morality can quickly collapse in the face of war, historical upheaval (WWII). Poem "Heraclitus" was my favourite as I learned what a Heraclitian Challenge is: nothing is permanent, it is an illusion of stability. Heraclitus said: "No one ever steps in the same river twice." So...embrace the present as it inevitably slips away.

Finished part 3 (read 30 poems so far....) - these poems are post WWII, more reflective with less surreal images.
"Child of Europe" ...child being the survivors of WW II.
Milosz has a sharp eye and traces justified betrayals during war he witnessed: "Having the choice of our own death or that of a friend, / We chose his". (...many turned a blind eye to the horrors of the concentration camps.

Series of poems while Milosz was in his 20s-30s (1934-1944): (The Poor Poet) "I am a poor poet, I have no words." Yet Milosz demanded that we be a moral witness (WWII) ...must see and remember. Milosz warns us of indifference and forgetfulness.

Poem: "And the City Stood in its Brightness"
It is impossible to recapture the past.. for example visiting your home town again.
The "CITY" preserves, stands "BRIGHT"
...BUT also obliterates b/c human lives
...run their course and fade away.

Poem "Mittelbergheim"
Places carry the weight of the past...visible (buildings) and invisible (suffering).
The church is empty....but the light (faith, hope) is still there.

“So what else is new?
I am not my own friend.
Time cuts me in two.”

― Czeslaw Milosz, Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004, p. 98