# Quote — Czesław Miłosz, Rescue

> How can I live in this country
>
> Where the foot knocks against
>
> The unburied bones of kin?
>
> I hear voices, see smiles. I cannot
>
> Write anything; five hands
>
> Seize my pen and order me to write
>
> The story of their lives and deaths.
>
> Was I born to become
>
> a ritual mourner?
>
> I want to sing of festivities,
>
> The greenwood into which Shakespeare
>
> Often took me. Leave
>
> To poets a moment of happiness,
>
> Otherwise your world will perish.

- Author: [Czesław Miłosz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/czeslaw-milosz.md)
- Book: [Rescue](https://www.leafyquotes.com/czeslaw-milosz/rescue.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz#Rescue_(1945)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/czeslaw-milosz/rescue/how-can-i-live

## More from this book

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/czeslaw-milosz/rescue/i-will-neither.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/czeslaw-milosz/rescue/love-means-to-look.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/czeslaw-milosz/rescue/those-dying-here.md)