One of the 20th centuries’ greatest poets, Czeslaw Milosz, has died.

One of my regrets in life is that I didn’t move heaven and earth to take a class from Milosz when I was a student at UC Berkeley. But perhaps, at that age, I was not yet ready to face great men; I could only watch from the side.

I’d see Milosz around campus from time to time; those bushy eyebrows were a quite distinguishing feature. Sometimes, I’d be with a fellow English major, and one of us would say quietly, “Look, there goes Czeslaw Milosz”, and we’d stare in awe, as if we were baseball fans and Ted Williams had just walked by.

Reflecting on those fleeting moments, I feel rather like this Milosz poem:

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive.
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.