Today’s guest poet: Mary Oliver
An Afternoon In The Stacks
Closing the book, I find I have left my head
inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open
their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound,
words adjusting themselves to their meaning.
Long passages open at successive pages. An echo,
continuous from the title onward, hums
behind me. From in here, the world looms,
a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences
carved out when an author traveled and a reader
kept the way open. When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.
A candleflame in Tibet leans when I move.
3 comments
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September 5, 2012 at 11:59 am
Stephen Page (eudaimonia)
Love mary Oliver.
September 5, 2012 at 12:26 pm
thesinglecell
This is why I can’t do a Kindle/Nook. Must have the satisfying thunk of a well-read book closing. Where was this photo from? Reminds me of a bookstore I was in in Seattle.
September 5, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Seasweetie
I can’t make that switch either, singlecell. There’s so much more to a book than the words on the page. And besides, I almost always drop my book when I fall asleep reading. That wouldn’t be so good with a Kindle. The picture is from a bookstore in Hay-on-Wye in Wales – one of the most awesomely memorable bookstores I’ve ever been in.