Milosz’s ‘Faithful Mother Tongue’

By Scott Horton

Faithful mother tongue,

I have been serving you.

Every night, I used to set before you little bowls of colors

so you could have your birch, your cricket, your finch

as preserved in my memory.

This lasted many years.

You were my native land; I lacked any other.

I believed that you would also be a messenger

between me and some good people

even if they were few, twenty, ten

or not born, as yet.

Now, I confess my doubt.

There are moments when it seems to me I have squandered my life.

For you are a tongue of the debased,

of the unreasonable, hating themselves

even more than they hate other nations,

a tongue of informers,

a tongue of the confused,

ill with their own innocence.

But without you, who am I?

Only a scholar in a distant country,

a success, without fears and humiliations.

Yes, who am I without you?

Just a philosopher, like everyone else.

Finish reading Milosz’s My Faithful Mother tongue here

–Czeslaw Milosz, My Faithful Mother Tongue (1968) in: Selected Poems 1931-2004 p. 90.