And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings, <br />That appeared once, still wet <br />As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn, <br />And, touched, coddled, began to live <br />In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up, <br />Tribes on the march, planets in motion. <br />“We are, ” they said, even as their pages <br />Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame <br />Licked away their letters. So much more durable <br />Than we are, whose frail warmth <br />Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes. <br />I imagine the earth when I am no more: <br />Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant, <br />Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. <br />Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, <br />Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.<br /><br />Czeslaw Milosz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-yet-the-books/
