Double Take on a Library

Double Take on a Library



A large White-fronted house,
gravel drive and crocuses
on the lawn – no wonder
I was nervous when you said,
“Let’s go inside and have a look,”
in answer to my question
as we passed -
without a moment’s pause
you walked up to the great door,
pushed it open, led me in
through a hall where no-one
stopped us,as we traspassed -

past the readers
at the shiny tables and the high
white shelves of books, the undisturbed
uncluttered world of library books
returned and borrowed. So, deception over,

you took out a book, and still the Library
seemed a private residence – I followed
and returned again through
season’s pendulum; in Winter, in
the crisp blue air when snow
through floor-to-ceiling windows
covered the sloping garden to the Mole,
to Poetry, winter-warm in orange
grey and green, with ghosts
of the danger-driven, of war
and paranormal loves.

It was there one day alone
I borrowed Laurence Whistler’s “Yestermorrow,”
took it home to read and wonder
at this grown-up’s super-sorrow,
who found new words for love
and for that dark expectancy:
the time that was not yesterday
nor yet the unbrought
day that we must live.

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