What has no shadow has no strength to live.
CZESLAW MILOSZWhat has no shadow has no strength to live.
CZESLAW MILOSZEven if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.
CZESLAW MILOSZPoetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.
CZESLAW MILOSZI imagine the earth when I am no more: Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
CZESLAW MILOSZWe have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
CZESLAW MILOSZPoetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
CZESLAW MILOSZAnd if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other?
CZESLAW MILOSZI am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZIf I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
CZESLAW MILOSZWhat is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZNot that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
CZESLAW MILOSZI was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.
CZESLAW MILOSZA weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
CZESLAW MILOSZFor a country without a past is nothing, a word That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning, A perishable wall destroyed by flame, An echo of animal emotions.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.
CZESLAW MILOSZ