And yet the books will be there on the shelves separate beings That appeared once, still wet As shinning 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 cried 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 changes, 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.

We here and that man, this man, and that other in-between, and that woman, this woman, and that other, whoever,

those people, and these, and these others in-between, this things, that thing, and this other in-between, whichever,

all things dying, these things, those things, those others in-between, good things, bad things, things that were, that will be,

being all of them, he stands there.

From Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Vishnu by Nammalwar - Trans by AK Ramanujan