Daily Poem: I Starve My Belly for a Sublime Purpose ~ Anna Swir
I Starve My Belly for a Sublime Purpose
~Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska)
Translated from Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
Three days
I starve my belly
so that it learns
to eat the sun.
I say to it: Belly,
I am ashamed of you. You must
spiritualize yourself. You must
eat the sun.
The belly keeps silent
for three days. It’s not easy
to waken in it higher aspirations.
Yet I hope for the best.
This morning, tanning myself on the beach,
I noticed that, little by little,
it begins to shine.
