A Song On the End of the World (Czeslaw Milosz)

This is a popular theme for movies these days. How will the world end? Vampires, disease, climate change, because the Aztecs predicted it so. Everyone's got an idea, a method. Milosz has no method, only reactions. And in his version, at least, no one is running, screaming from the horror. And no one acts the part of the triumphant savior.

Instead, he gives four stanzas describing what would be a pretty average day. That is, if the title and first line didn't change the poem's tone: "On the day the world ends..."

So, on this very last day, what details does the poet consider worthy of to draw our attention to out of all the going-ons? "A bee circles a clover,/A fisherman mends a glimmering net./Happy porpoises jump in the sea"

Nature. Nature is described first, maybe because it so shocking. People, like all species, will eventually cease to be, but to say that Nature will disappear seems ludicrous. How could water, land, and the millions of creatures stop being?

But again, that's the point. Things appear too big, too seemingly forever to cease being. So people put it out of their minds. Even with hours of life left, they will return to normal, quotidian tasks: "Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,/A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,/Vegetable peddlers shout in the street"

Even the only man who speaks 'the truth' keeps "busy" gardening his tomatoes even though he knows he and they will not be in only a few hours.

Knowledge is pretty useless if you cannot, like in a movie, act to prevent disaster. Perhaps, it is a wise old man (a prophet even) who says the world is ending, there is no second chance and then continues on with his work as if the days would stretch on to infinity like they always had.

Favorite line: "By the rainspout young sparrows are playing/And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be."