Sens / Meaning Part VII -- Final three lines

A tireless messenger who runs and runs


Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies,


And calls out, protests, screams.

"A word" has become an active element, a "tireless" messenger, infinitely unlike the "lips that perish". In the original poem "Messenger" also could be rendered "representative," or "member of parliament." This messenger does not just bear a message, but represents the one who sent it. "Tireless" indicates that this word is unstoppable, unceasing, interminable.

Stressing the simplicity and eternity and endurance of this indefatigable word, the poet repeats "runs and runs". Relentless in its energy, inexhaustible in its mission to be, this word travels beyond the scenes and scenarios of unending worlds, bypassing realities that language cannot begin to describe. "Interstellar fields", stars that swallow up darkness, that exude light, are mere ornaments in bland array of "fields", blackened expanses rendered mute in the presence of this word that never stops. "Revolving galaxies" continue their quiet dance of wonder and delight, beyond the thrushes, the branches, night and day. No matter how impoverished the opinions of man, of his certainty that there is no "lining" of the world, the grand and growing mystery of space, of worlds yet unseen, humble a staggered imagination, and the word from the dead and gone lips of a poet still take flight.

And what does this word do? "Calls out", for a word, emerging from a language, must indeed make sense to someone, someone else must hear it, must make sense of it, this word full of meaning, of direction, of purpose. Why does this word have purpose? It "protests", it refuses to die, it refuses to be reduced to nothing. Whether printed on a page, or etched in the emptiness of a cold universe, this word will not be ignored. It screams, it will be heard, it will be noticed, it will impose on another to think, to respond, to do something.

Milosz' poem announces, from his death, not his perishing, that eternity, meaning, purpose, direction, the thrust of our lives, is not a barren exercise, a joke, a series of empty pictures painted on a wall or sprayed on the side of a building, only to be defaced and erased. This one word, or Word, lives and breathes in every one who believes. Our capacity to speak, the greatest distinction between ourselves and the rest of God's creation, declares the unending Hope, like in Hardy's poem "The Darkling Thrush." No matter how cynical, no matter how resigned we may become, the words uttered by us will not stop, the Word living within us will never allow us to die.

When I die, after the reading of a psalm, I would like this poem to be read at my funeral.