Library – time

· by · in dVerse, poetry, the aged librarian. ·

The windows of the library
can only be reached
by climbing a ladder
hidden under lock and key;
so as the books unopened
the worlds (words)
within will only know
about each other
through a visitor bringing
the evening papers.

Once I asked the librarian
for the time;
he just looked
at me and shared his view
that to know the time,
I had to leave
cause within
the time will never change
unless defined
in syllables dying.

But through the windows
sometimes sun
may share the secret time
in afternoon,
through dance of dust mites

Rijksmuseum Research Library  By Michael D Beckwith – Own work, CC0,

Today Dora hosts dVerse Poetics where she wants us to write about the open window, which brought me back to my fantasy library where windows are few and hard to reach.

38 responses to “Library – time”

  2. Welcome back librarian! And a library with windows and books unopened, Björn. I love the mystery in the lines:

    ‘the time will never change
    unless defined
    in syllables dying’.

  3. I’d expect nothing less of the librarian’s windows, as secretive and cryptic as the librarian himself, even as the dust mites dance in the afternoon light. All hail the librarian! 🙂

  5. Your library windows remind me of stained glass windows in a church, or a frosted window in winter — a dim portal in which the interior ordains the message of light. Lovely meditation — especially how time passes there only by “syllables dying.”

  10. A touch of the surreal, yet it all feels very real, the sun streaming through windows that are hard to access and under lock and key…a world of mystery that you can only leave by physically leave, the knowledge within stored forever, but even forever is different in the library…”I once asked the librarian for the time”……the fool…….who asked.

  14. p.s. That said, in Terry Pratchett’s Disc World, the Unseen University’s (Wizard’s) Librarian is an Orangutan (was a wizard but a spell went wrong) whose single word vocabulary is “Ook.”

  22. Even with unopened windows that library is extraordinary. A good sun is sure to find it and steal through to enlighten those within its confine. Lovely. Thanks.

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