2. A Poet Who Was Baptized
-From A Theological Treatise byCzeslaw Milosz
A poet who was baptized
in the country church of a Catholic parish.
And encountered
difficulties with his fellow believers.
He tried to guess what was going on in their heads.
He suspected an inveterate lesion of humiliation
Which had issued in this compensatory tribal rite.
And yet each one of them carried his or her own fate.
The opposition, I versus they, seemed immoral.
It meant he considered himself better than they were.
It was easier to repeat the prayers in English
At the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Berkeley.
Once, driving on the freeway and coming to a fork
Where one lane leads to San Francisco, one to Sacramento,
He thought that one day he would need to write
a theological treatise to redeem himself from the sin of pride.