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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

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 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 MILOSZ

Book Born Imagination Myself People Radiant Woman
The true enemy of man is generalization.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Enemy Generalization Man True
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
I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Better Compose Form Philosophy Poetry
He returns years later, has no demands. He wants only one, most precious thing: To see, purely and simply, without name, Without expectations, fears, or hopes, At the edge where there is no I or not-I.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Demand Fear Himself Hope Precious Return See
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
You who think of us: they lived only in delusion, Know that we the People of the Book, will never die!
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Death Illusion Live People Thinking
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
Language is the only homeland.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Home Land Language
It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Communication Experience Impossible Knowledge People
Every poet depends upon generations who wrote in his native tongue; he inherits styles and forms elaborated by those who lived before him. At the same time, though, he feels that those old means of expression are not adequate to his own experience.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Expression Form Generation Himself Inheritance Poet
Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Earth Forget Reason Sparkle Suffering Yourself
The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Environment Oneself Shame
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circle Day End Repair World
Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Finding Growth Reality Small Travel Tree Truth

Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

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Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

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