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

Wait, for now. Distrust everything, if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven't they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become lovely again. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait. Don't go too early. You're tired. But everyone's tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a while and listen. Music of hair, Music of pain, music of looms weaving all our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear, the flute of your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.