i wrote a poem in the library. it is not a good poem, but it is better than working.

Kindle Therein Any Fire or Flame**

Did any of them die for burning scrolls?
Did they refuse to leave their manuscripts?

Poets’ words upon their fading lips,

did the now-nameless Alexandrian souls—

in all their million beat-papyrus rolls—

know medicine? or math? or sun’s eclipse?

Did knowledge, useless, fall in charréd strips?

Did ancient people mourn the glowing coals?

My back hurts. Bodley’s floor-to-ceiling lines

like prison bars remind me of my wrongs.

I tap my keys so not to feel alone.

Hard-covers, gleaming gilt upon their spines

edge the angles. Here, the ancient songs

cannot be heard through plaster, paper, stone.

**the title is a reference to The Bodleian Declaration, which is pasted above every desk in the Bod. Among its many provisions includes, "I hereby undertake . . . not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame." The aforementioned declaration often happens to be the thing at which my eyes are sort-of pointed while I am staring into space.