Adonis Diaries

By: 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, 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, heights