Oppermann and the poem

Today Oppermann read me a poem of Czeslaw Milosz.
He also made certain comments via e-mail that I will include here:

"i was reading from milosz' little poem "at a certain age" to my students today; but what can ... [youth]... glean from reflections on self-realization as an ugly toad. now this is not wholly unrelated to the tarkovsky images of the mud, because what the .... and young fellows do not realize is that the mud - like dylan's emptiness - is endless, and even infinite, before it actually turns into clay and cold."

I commented that the last image of the toad was reminiscent of Hecate's sacred totem animal, then immediately I recanted my smug psychologizing.
"At a Certain Age":

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.
White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind
was too busy visiting sea after sea.
We did not succeed in interesting the animals.
Dogs, disappointed, expected an order,
A cat, as always immoral, was falling asleep.
A person seemingly very close
Did not care to hear of things long past.
Conversations with friends over vodka or coffee
Ought not to be prolonged beyond the first sign of boredom. It would be humiliating to pay by the hour
A man with a diploma, just for listening.
Churches. Perhaps churches. But to confess there what?
That we used to see ourselves as handsome and noble
Yet later in our place an ugly toad
Half-opens its thick eyelid
And one sees clearly: “That’s me.”

I mentioned seeing myself in the mirror recently as my eighty-year old father: I recognized the profound confusion, the lack of clarity that I had hoped age would clarify... all this had not left me: there was only the recognition that all of this was as it was: I greeted myself: "Hello pop!" I said in a gentle tone of recognition for this man, gentle and yet appealing, that seemed to take me on a raft away from myself. Ah that is me, and that is nothing at all.

...the physiognomy of nothing, of cold clay, which after all is the clay of Adam, the clay we build our houses with. Water seeks its own level and so does mud, and I am thinking of an Ursula LeGuinn short story called "The Day Before the Revolution."

(listening to "Greeting Cards: Tonadilla (on the Name of Andrés Segovia)")