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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?

Czeslaw Milosz

Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Attribute Description Desire Eyes Himself See
Do you know how it is when one wakes at night suddenly and asks, listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want, insatiable?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Fear Listening Night Wake Up Yourself
For 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 MILOSZ

Animal Country Destroy Flame Hard Past Speak Word
I’ve always regretted that I’m made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Acceptance End Impossible Regret
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death – the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Betrayal Death Judgement People Theory Thinking True
You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Failure Myself Reach Try
Even 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 MILOSZ

Awakening Call Lips Protest Run Scream Word
I have defined poetry as a ‘passionate pursuit of the Real.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Definition Passionate Poet Poetry Pursuit Reality
Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

God Growth Hero Hurt Transformation
What is this enigmatic impulse that does not allow one to settle down in the achieved, the finished? I think it is a quest for reality.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Achievement Allow Finish Oneself Reality Settle Thinking
I 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 MILOSZ

Existence Myself River Suffering
If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Kind Man Myself
When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Born Family Poet Writing
The partition separating life from death is so tenuous. The unbelievable fragility of our organism suggests a vision on a screen: a kind of mist condenses itself into a human shape, lasts a moment and scatters.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Break Death Kind Life Moments Partition Separate Vision
A man should not love the moon. An ax should not lose weight in his hand. His garden should smell of rotting apples, And grow a fair amount of nettles.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Growth Hands Love Man Moon Weight
The soul exceeds its circumstances.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circumstance Exceed Soul

If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?

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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?

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