Anna Swir: "I Talk to My Body"

My body, you are an animal

whose appropriate behavior

is concentration and discipline.

An effort

of an athlete, of a saint and of a yogi.

Well trained,

you may become for me

a gate

through which I will leave myself

and a gate

through which I will enter myself.

A plumb line to the center of the earth

and a cosmic ship to Jupiter.

My body, you are an animal

for whom ambition

is right.

Splendid possibilities

are open to us.

"I Talk to My Body" by Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska), from A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz (Mariner Books edition, 1998). Poem translated from the original Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan.  

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.