A concrete burial-mound, an aging cave
That hoards the pages we’ve forgot — a grave
For tomes no eye has scanned in years. I wheel
Revolving doors and turnstiles, duck and steal
Down dirty steps to work in Reference’ calm.
Its almanacs distract with charts, embalm
Old facts in browning pages sleekly pressed
In plastic wraps. Young people, starved of rest,
Lean into books, unearthing words like bones.
They excavate ideas, bury clones
Beneath note-paper plots. In basements hiss
Dehumidifiers, drying the abyss
Where fading Chinese texts in crisscrossed strokes
Resist decay, defy corrosion’s coax.
Nearby, gazettes in reprint herald war
Resolved decades ago. On every floor
Wood shelves of books, stone columns’ reaching heave
Have just one goal: protect, preserve. I leave.
Outside, our tick for preservation fails.
Words disappear, the wind disperses wails.
Outside, the chill white day will warm to blue,
Will someday freeze, spew ice. And I’ll accrue
My thoughts in swirling cursive scrawl, endowed
To notebooks I someday will lose. So how
Accept the lecture unrecalled, the dawn
That folds to noon, the breath that blows and is gone?