How can I live in this country Where the foot knocks against The unburied bones of kin? I hear voices, see… — Czesław Miłosz

I will neither resurrect the past nor return.

Sleep, Romeo, Juliet, on your headrest of stone feathers.

I won't raise your bound hands from the ashes.

Let the cat visit the deserted cathedrals,

its pupil flashing on the altars. Let an owl

nest on the dead ogive.

Love means to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills —

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Those dying here, the lonely

Forgotten by the world,

Our tongue becomes for them

The language of an ancient planet.

Until, when all is legend

And many years have passed,

On a great Campo di Fiori

Rage will kindle at a poet's word.