CZESLAW MILOSZ'S WARSAW

In a picture card Warsaw
above dwelling places
whispers at this dawn
of a spiritless past
in ravaged war
from a totalitarian eye
under the sun's footprints
of sleepless rag pickers
by horse drawn cart,
who will admit us to memory
at the first hour
of the day sky
out of exile, after forty years
lit by birdsong miracles
with the wind a solo by itself
in the acts of dusty dreaming
his books on orange crates
listening to Chopin etudes
near a Gogol novel
you, Czeslaw
in a pilgrimage's walk
by a chorus of half fight
song birds by radiant branches
near chimney mesh sparrows
this morning is no longer
rooted in silence
in a still age of homesickness
sinking between premature fear
with the bread
of a departed friend
knowing what lies
in the courtroom
of history and expatriation
from sleep houses and death camps
in thoughts of earth, ashes, roads
those voiceless hours
from four leafed tears
of a mute sun shower
waits on a wandering revelation.