Love by Milosz

Big Frank has been reading poetry lately by Czeslaw Milosz, the nobel prize winning poet. Milosz wrote in Polish, but often translated or worked with the poets who translated his poems into English - the translations are very good. Here is a poem he wrote on love. It's a different view, and one puts the accent on understanding oneself by stepping out of the mind-lock so many fall into whereby they only see themselves from their own perspective - a tough nut to crack, but one that allows one, as Milosz understands, to truly love.

Love
by Czeslaw Milosz

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.