A Look at Distant Things

In today's poem, Czeslaw Milosz encourages you to look at yourself from a distance, as part of the greater whole. This type of "looking" offers a broader perspective, perhaps a less critical one, in which you view yourself as part of the human race, each of us with our own hopes, challenges, fears, and joys. Be kind to yourself today!

"Love"

by Czeslaw Milosz

(You can listen to the poem HERE.)

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.

- “Love” by Czeslaw Milosz, is featured in "10 Poems to Open Your Heart" by Roger Housden.

- About the Author: Czesław Miłosz was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts". Wikipedia

- Photo by Chris on Unsplash