Sometimes great things come in small packages. This poem from the Polish poet Bronislaw Maj both epitomizes and expresses this profound truth. Makes for an admirably succinct apologia for the existence of poets and poetry...
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A Leaf
A leaf, one of the last, parts from a maple branch:
it is spinning in the transparent air of October, falls
on a heap of others, stops, fades. No one
admired its entrancing struggle with the wind,
followed its flight, no one will distinguish it now
as it lies among the other leaves, no one saw what I did.
I am the only one.
2 comments:
This one is easy to miss, but this simple poem brought me some pleasant responses. Can't wait for the fall, #1. But we have to look to the poets to give us a 'view' of these things no one sees, or those things we all see but miss the beauty of. Duke's weekly poems have something to offer; I keep saying he should put one of his own on there, but if enough fans keep checking out his selections, maybe there will be a groundswell.....Duke, keep it comin', man......
Plenty more where that came from, Mutt... the great thing is (and this picks up on the theme from your last post!), I have a ton of fascinating ones from literally all over the world... given that poets "see things" (nod to my man Seamus Heaney) that we usually miss, and many of them have a different perspective just because they're from a different culture, the bottom line is that there is much wisdom to be gained from even a little "feature" like this... my hope is that folks will come by and just gain a little insight, a little inspiration, that they wouldn't have otherwise had. Sounds like this happened for you when you read Maj's poem, which I am glad for!
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