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Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.

Czeslaw Milosz

It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

End Expedition Myself Sweet Thinking
What has no shadow has no strength to live.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Live Shadow Strength
What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Nation People Poetry Save
And now I am ready to keep running When the sun rises beyond the borderlands of death. I already see mountain ridges in the heavenly forest Where, beyond every essence, a new essence awaits.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Beyond Death Essence Forest Heaven Rise Run Sun Wait
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
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
Our memory is childish and it saves only what we need.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Children Memories Need Ourselves Save
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
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Death People True
I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Better Compose Form Philosophy Poetry
I liked beaches, swimming pools, and clinics for there they were the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I pitied them and myself, but this will not protect me. The word and the thought are over.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Bone Flesh Myself Thinking
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
The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Live Speak Story Talk Tribute
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
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
Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Growth Small Truth Yourself

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.

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Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.

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