Anna Swir: "Priceless Gifts"

An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.

"Priceless Gifts" by Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska), from Talking to My Body, translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan. © Copper Canyon Press, 1996.

Image credit: "Plenty of Emptiness," oil on canvas, by Horacio Cardozo.