Anna Swir: "I Talk to My Body"

My body, you are an animal

whose appropriate behavior

is concentration and discipline.

An effort

of an athlete, of a saint and of a yogi.

Well trained,

you may become for me

a gate

through which I will leave myself

and a gate

through which I will enter myself.

A plumb line to the center of the earth

and a cosmic ship to Jupiter.

My body, you are an animal

for whom ambition

is right.

Splendid possibilities

are open to us.

"I Talk to My Body" by Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska), from A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz (Mariner Books edition, 1998). Poem translated from the original Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan.  

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.
 

Anna Swir: "Priceless Gifts"

An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.

"Priceless Gifts" by Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska), from Talking to My Body, translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan. © Copper Canyon Press, 1996.

Image credit: "Plenty of Emptiness," oil on canvas, by Horacio Cardozo.