. . . everything that can be recorded concerning those who have completed their earthly journey and set off on the eternal one.
                Danilo Kiš, The Encyclopedia of the Dead

A library with endless shelves: the halls
Receding into binding-lined allées.
And every book a life, hardbound and standing
In the stacks, half-lit, their dusty mausoleum.

In this one, insomnia of javelins
And chariots after a day of reading Homer,
In that one, over a frozen pond, the sound,