Czesław Miłosz

Today, we note the birth date of Czesław Miłosz (June 30,1911 – August 14, 2004), Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat.

Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".

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.

--Czesław Miłosz