As soon as I finished night's post, I had the *bright idea* to see if Milosz had made an entry for the next day in his A Year of the Hunter, a journal of 1987-1988. And of course, the entry I found was not for today, but for yesterday. It was written on February 26, 1988, near the end of the book on page 208.

Here is the whole entry; as in a blog, some entries are shorter than others.

February 26, 1988

I have an overwhelming aversion to discoursing on poetry, an aversion that set me apart from the thousands of theoreticians, scholastics, martyrs of one or another "ism" who construct their university careers on that "ism." I prefer a poem that was written a thousand years ago by the Japanese woman poet Izumi Shikibu (974-1034)

                      If he whom I wait for
                      Should come now, what will I do?
                      This morning the snow-covered garden
                       Is so beautiful without a trace of footprints.

Is such a poem an instrument of knowledge? Yes, of knowledge, 
and on a more profound level than philosophy.

And now you can see why I went looking for a picture of my garden in the snow. Sleep safe and well!