Comprehension of good and evil is given in the running of the blood.
In child's nestling close to its mother, she is security and warmth,
In night fears when we are small, in dread of the beast's fangs and in
the terror of dark rooms,
In youthful infatuations where childhood delight finds completion.
And should we discredit the idea for its modest origins?
Or should we say plainly that good is on the side of the living
And evil on the side of a doom that lurks to devour us?
Yes, good is an ally of being and the mirror of evil is nothing,
Good is brightness, evil darkness, good high, evil low,
According to the nature of our bodies, of our language.
The same can be said of beauty. It should not exist.
There is not only no reason for it, but an argument against.
Yet, undoubtedly it is, and is different from ugliness.
The voices of birds outside the window when they greet the morning
And iridescent stripes of light blazing on the floor,
Or the horizon with a wavy line where the peach-colored sky and the
dark-blue mountains meet.
Or the architecture of a tree, the slimness of a column crowned with
green.
All that, hasn't it been invoked for centuries
As a mystery which, in one instant, will be suddenly revealed?
And the old artist thinks that all his life he has only trained his hand.
One more day and he will enter the core as one enters a flower.
And though the good is weak, beauty is very strong.
Nonbeing sprawls, everywhere it turns into ash whole expanses of
being,
It masquerades in shapes and colors that imitate existence
And no one would know it, if they did not know that is was ugly.
And when people cease to believe that there is good and evil
Only beauty will call to them and save them
So that they still know how to say: this is true and that is false.
- Czeslaw Milosz
This poem rather encapsulates a lot of things that have been on my mind or in the back of my mind recently and for years. Despite the fact that I love knowledge, science and intellect I feel as though this poem expresses some of the mystery of life we can not help but agree with, that doesn't oppose intellect, but seems something not entirely different, but still somewhat different. And yet this poem seems rather simple and obvious in many ways. I keep wondering what is it about epic good vs. evil stories that so enthrall my senses and wonder and there remains both a keenly felt answer and a mystery to this question that this poem draws me back to. I keep attempting to write further why when opening Milosz today and finding this that I had to share it and I keep erasing my attempts at continued explanation, so all I'll say is I love it.
