"A Red Wing Rose In The Darkness"

Two more poems, both beautifully set up by Gjertrud Schnackenberg. In these, she tackles the topic of Czeslaw Milosz and two of his poems--'If There Is No God' and 'Encounter.'

Here is a passage from her introduction to 'If There Is No God' that I find quite striking:

"When I first read this poem, 'If There Is No God,' which Czeslaw Milosz wrote when he was in his early 90s, I was reminded of Michaelangelo's old age, when a witness to his work said that sparks flew from under his chisel. And especially I was reminded of that last vanishing in stone, Pieta, which Michaelangelo was overheard to be hammering and chiseling in his apartment in Rome until a week before his death at the age of 89."

There's more here and here, or in the audio below.