The word Faith means when someone sees
A dew-drop or a floating leaf, and knows
That they are, because they have to be.
And even if you dreamed, or closed your eyes
And wished, the world would still be what it was,
And the leaf would still be carried down the river.
It means that when someone’s foot is hurt
By a sharp rock, he also knows that rocks
Are here so they can hurt our feet.
Look, see the long shadow cast by the trees;
And flowers and people throw shadows on the earth:
What has no shadow has no strength to live.
A dew-drop or a floating leaf, and knowsThat they are, because they have to be.
And even if you dreamed, or closed your eyes
And wished, the world would still be what it was,
And the leaf would still be carried down the river.
It means that when someone’s foot is hurt
By a sharp rock, he also knows that rocks
Are here so they can hurt our feet.
Look, see the long shadow cast by the trees;
And flowers and people throw shadows on the earth:
What has no shadow has no strength to live.
"Faith" by Czeslaw Milosz, from The Separate Notebooks: Poems. Translated from the Polish by Renata Gorczynski, Robert Hass, and Robert Pinsky. © Ecco Press, 1984.Photography credit: "Fall Floating Downstream," by Daniel Johnson (originally color).
An excellence, this.
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