Pages

Friend, do not treat this book with disregard,
for it contains the pages that uplift
and then tear down the nations to be charred.

My fingers are inked over with this gift;
I have inscribed it deeply in my eyes.
Since then, all sights reflect in it and shift.

Since then, in animals' unworldly cries
or any natural, insensate noise,
I hear the echo of its lines arise.

The mountains and the rivers are its toys;
the palaces and pillars made by men
are shaped according to its upright poise.

Its characters and I have met at night.
Upon the road or in my bed we sparred,
and I have known their thoughts within the fight.

These words go unforgotten and unmarred
until the heart is calloused and grows hard.