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You whom I could not save

Listen to me.  

Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.  

I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.  

I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.


What strengthened me, for you was lethal.  

You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,  

Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty;  

Blind force with accomplished shape.


Here is a valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge  

Going into white fog. Here is a broken city;  

And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave  

When I am talking with you.


What is poetry which does not save  

Nations or people?  

A connivance with official lies,  

A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,  

Readings for sophomore girls.

That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,  

That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,  

In this and only this I find salvation.


They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds  

To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.  

I put this book here for you, who once lived  

So that you should visit us no more.  




                                                                                         Warsaw, 1945

                                                                                        
- by Czeslaw Milosz






st, 13 dec 13