“How it should be in Heaven I know, for I was there.
By its river. Listening to its birds.”
"How It Should Be in Heaven" (1986), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Hass
New Poems (1985-1987)
Context: How it should be in Heaven I know, for I was there.
By its river. Listening to its birds.
In its season: in summer, shortly after sunrise.
I would get up and run to my thousand works
And the garden was superterrestrial, owned by imagination.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Czeslaw Milosz 106
Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator 1911–2004Related quotes
"Foreword to a book of poems", in An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems, trans. Huỳnh Sanh Thông (Yale University Press, 1996), <small>ISBN 978-0300064100</small>

“I'm right there, swimming the river of hardships but I know how to swim…”
Source: Desolation Angels

Si me preguntáis en dónde he estado
debo decir "Sucede."
Debo de hablar del suelo que oscurecen las piedras,
del río que durando se destruye:
no sé sino las cosas que los pájaros pierden,
el mar dejado atrás, o mi hermana llorando.
¿Por qué tantas regiones, por qué un día
se junta con un día? ¿Por qué una negra noche
se acumula en la boca? ¿Por qué muertos?
No Hay Olvido (Sonata) (There's No Forgetting (Sonata) or There is No Oblivion (Sonata)), Residencia II (Residence II), VI, stanza 1.
Alternate translation by Donald D. Walsh:
If you ask me where I have been
I must say "It so happens."
I must speak of the ground darkened by stones,
of the river that enduring is destroyed:
I know only the things that the birds lose,
the sea left behind, or my sister weeping.
Why so many regions, why does a day
join a day? Why does a black night
gather in the mouth? Why dead people?
Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1933)

Can vei la lauzeta mover
De joi sas alas contra·l rai,
Que s'oblid'e·s laissa chazer
Per la doussor c'al cor li vai,
Ai, tan grans enveya m'en ve
De cui qu'eu veya jauzïon.
"Can vei la lauzeta mover", line 1; translation from James Branch Cabell The Cream of the Jest ([1917] 1972) p. 33.
Source: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
“The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.”
Poem The sun has burst the sky http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sun-has-burst-the-sky/