This page, for instance,

wasn’t made to be read.

It was made to be pallid,

a merely stolen Iliad,

something keeping quiet,

a leaf long fallen

going back to its branch.

It was made to be beach,

who knows, Andromeda, Antarctica,

Himalaya, sensed syllable,

it was made to be ultimate,

something yet unmade.

Words carried far

by the waters of the Nile,

one day this page, papyrus,

will have to be translated

into symbol, Sanskrit,

into every Indian’s dialect,

will have to say good day

just to what’s murmured at the ear,

will have to be rough stone

where someone drops a glass.

Isn’t that how life is?

– Paulo Leminski – ‘ADVICE TO THE SHIPWRECKED’