Poem with Lines from Czeslaw Milosz

In the aftermath of catastrophe, anyone can feel 
a certain kind of shame for wanting the ordinary: 
soap and water, a bed in which someone is breathing 
and snoring. Sugar and flour for a birthday cake. Pizza 
and beer. A trip to the drugstore, knowing an amber 
vial of pills is waiting with your name printed on the label. 
You've also felt sad and as if incapable of wonder, piteous 
and needy in your everyday suffering; forgetful of those 
small, uncountable deliverances that came just in the nick 
of time when you wished for a door, any door, opening with 
the clarity of early morning— But what does one do 
with so much grief? O countless hands, pressed 
against train windows. Overnight, fields turn into plots 
for burying. Smoke billows from wreckage of buildings.  
 

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