Veni Creator

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Come, Holy Spirit, 
bending or not bending the grasses, 
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame, 
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow 
covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada. 
I am only a man: I need visible signs. 
I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction. 
Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in church 
lifts its hand, only once, just once, for me. 
But I understand that signs must be human, 
therefore call one man, anywhere on earth, 
not me—after all I have some decency— 
and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you. 

Berkely, 1961

© Czeslaw Milosz