And Yet the Books
by Czeslaw Milosz
Feast of Our Holy Father Gregory, Bishop of Assa
Anno Domini 2020, July 10
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, whose 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.
Berkeley, 1986
New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001
(New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 468. Available for purchase from Eighth Day Books.
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