As is often the case, I bought this book by chance because I opened it in the middle and one sentence caught my eye. In this case (from memory):"You wouldn't have envied the tenor in the camel-hair coat if you had guessed his fear and known how he was going to die." Then I let fifteen years pass. Two days ago I stumbled upon it again and read the first poem that enchanted me:
My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman’s body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man? Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me? For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress’s neck.
Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness,
Able to recognise greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.-- Czeslaw Milosz, A Confession, 1986
