An Afternoon in the Stacks

An Afternoon in the Stacks


Closing the book, I find I have left
my head inside it.
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 the 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.

William Stafford

Posted over on Friends of William Stafford