An August Afternoon
An August afternoon. Even here is heard
the rush of the glittering Raba.
We look at the mountains,
my mother and I. How clear the air is:
every dark spruce on Mount Lubon
is seen distinctly as if it grew in our garden.
An astonishing phenomenon—it astonishes my mother
and me. I am four and do not know
what it means to be four. I am
happy: I do not know what to be means
or happiness. I know my mother
sees and feels what I do. And I know
that as always in the evening
we will take a walk
far, up to the woods, already before
long.
by Bronislaw Maj
from A Book of Luminous Things
translation by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass
A Harvest Book; Harcourt Brace, 1996
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