Human reason is beautiful and invincible. No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books, No sentence of banishment can prevail against it. It puts wha… - Czesław Miłosz

And Yet the Books

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.

Language is the only homeland.

TAKO MALO

Tako malo sam rekao,
Kratki dani.

Kratki dani,
Kratke noći,
Kratke godine.

Tako malo sam rekao,
Ne stigoh.

Moje srce se umorilo
Od ushićenja,
Očajanja,
Gorljivosti,
Nade.

Čeljust levijatana
Zatvarala se u meni.

Nag ležah na obalama
Bezljudnih ostrva.

Povuče me u ponor sa sobom
Beli kit sveta.

I sad ne znam
Šta je bilo istinsko.

(U Berkliju, 1969.)