An afternoon in the stacks

An Afternoon In The Stacks

by Mary Oliver


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.




I fell in love with a poet today. The day´s post on Superhero Journal (see my sidebar) introduced me to Mary Oliver, and I just had to surf off in search of more. She beat the hell out of my day at work.

And now my mouth aches from grinning at An Afternoon in the Stacks and I have another all picked out for another day. This one was for the bookworms, growing fatter with every read............