“You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.”

— Adam Zagajewski

Try to Praise the Mutilated World, Try to Praise the Mutilated World, September 11, 2011, Adam Zagajewski, The New Yorker, September 24, 2001 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/09/24/010924po_poem_zagajewski,

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Adam Zagajewski 5

Poet 1945

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