“I am no more than a secretary of the invisible thing.” Czesław Miłosz begins one of his poems with this evocative declaration of artistic vocation. In this spare statement, the poet abandons any pretense of authorship in the conventional sense and presents himself as a vessel, one who listens inwardly and transcribes what he cannot claim as his own. The image is metaphysical, drawn from a lineage of writers who serve something higher than craft or culture, something closer to sacred obligation. Among the few who recognized this rare calling and lived its demands with equal gravity was Thomas Merton, the monastic contemplative who saw writing as a form of listening and language as a possible bridge to the divine.
In “Secretaries,” Miłosz evokes a quiet community scattered across the globe. These fellow scribes do not know one another, and perhaps never will.
Secretaries, mutually unknown, we walk the earth
Without much comprehension.
There is a tender humility here. These mysterious and diligent figures are possessed by a duty to record what has no fixed origin. They receive fragments, phrases that begin in the middle or trail off into uncertainty. They are faithful to what comes, though they may never understand what it means. Their labor is characterized by humble devotion.