Freedom

By PoemsAdam Zagajewski; Translated from the Polish by Antony Graham; From the forthcoming anthology Post-War Polish Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz, University of California Press.

April 14, 1982

What is freedom? ask the philosophers. I, too, wonder; at one time I maintain that it means guaranteed liberty in the face of the power of the State, or else I emphasise that it is the strength of convictions, the sovereignty of spirit and the loyalty to one's own vocation. But even when I am at a loss to define the essence of freedom I know full well the meaning of captivity.