On Tuesday 23 March, the 11th day of the "Printemps des Poètes", we share one of the favourite poems of the President of the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe, Anna Rurka.

 

Który skrzywdzi?e?

Który skrzywdzi?e? cz?owieka prostego
?miechem nad krzywd? jego wybuchaj?c,
Gromad? b?aznów ko?o siebie maj?c
Na pomieszanie dobrego i z?ego,

Cho?by przed tob? wszyscy si? sk?onili
Cnot? i m?dro?? tobie przypisuj?c,
Z?ote medale na twoj? cze?? kuj?c,
Radzi ?e jeszcze jeden dzie? prze?yli,

Nie b?d? bezpieczny. Poeta pami?ta
Mo?esz go zabi? - narodzi si? nowy.
Spisane b?d? czyny i rozmowy.

Lepszy dla ciebie by?by ?wit zimowy
I sznur i ga??? pod ci??arem zgi?ta.

Czeslaw Milosz.

 

YOU WHO WRONGED

You who wronged a simple man

Bursting into laughter at the crime,

And kept a pack of fools around you

To mix good and evil, to blur the line,

 

Though everyone bowed down before you,

Saying virtue and wisdom lit your way,

Striking gold medals in your honor,

Glad to have survived another day,

 

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers.

You can kill one, but another is born.

The words are written down, the deed, the date.

 

And you’d have done better with a winter dawn,

A rope, and a branch bowed beneath your weight.

Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Richard Lourie.