And Yet The Booksby Czeslaw Milosz
And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, who frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
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 –
Have a great Monday!
4 comments:
Did he win the Nobel Prize for Literature?
Beautiful!
It really is a beautiful piece, it is.
Yep Matt, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.
Wow! How moving...Not to be maudlin or morbid or anything, but wouldn't that be a wonderful piece to have someone read at one's funeral? I'm quite sure that instead of some sermon that makes nobody feel better about the event, I'd prefer favorite passages from books to be read, along with beautiful poetry such as this. It would be so wonderful to leave loved ones with beautiful literature and poetry as their last memory associated with me.
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