Seen Fleetingly, From a Train

BRONISLAW MAJ
translated from Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass

Seen fleetingly, from a train:
a foggy evening, strands of smoke
hanging immobile over fields,
the humid blackness of earth, the sun
almost set - against its fading shield,
far away, two dots: women in dark wraps
coming back from church perhaps
one telling something to another, some common story,
of sinful lives perhaps - her words
distinct and simple but out of them
one could create everything
again. Keep it in memory, forever:
the sun, ploughed earth, women,
love, evening, those few words
good for the beginning, keep it all -
perhaps tomorrow we will be
somewhere else, altogether.