"Run from it, if you will. So be it.

(Winds that enshroud us in their folds-

or no wind). So be it. Pull at the doors, of a hot

afternoon, doors that the wind holds, wrenches

from our arms - and hands. So be it. The Library

is sanctuary to our fears. So be it. So be it.

- the wind that has tripped us, pressed upon

us, prurient or upon the prurience of our fears

-laughter fading. So be it.

Sit breathless

or still breathless. So be it. Then, eased

turn to the task. So be it :

Old newspaper files,

to find - a child burned in a field,

no language. Tried, aflame, to crawl under

a fence to go home. So be it. Two others,

boy and girl, clasped in each other's arms

(clasped also by the water) So be it. The Paterson

Cricket club, 1896. A woman lobbyist. So

be it. Another Indian rock shelter

found - a bone awl. So be it. The

old Rogers Locomotive Works. So be it.

Shield us from loneliness. So be it. The mind

reels, starts back amazed from the reading

So be it.

He turns: over his right shoulder

a vague outline, speaking

Gently! Gently!

as in all things an opposite

that awakes

the fury, conceiving

knowledge

by way of despair that has

no place

to lay its glossy head -

Save only - not alone!

Never, if possible

alone! to escape the accepted

chopping block...

Beautiful thing:

-a dark flame,

a wind, a flood - counter to all staleness.

Dead men's dreams, confined by these walls, risen,

seek an outlet. The spirit languishes,

unable, unable not from lack of innate ability -

but from that which immures them presser here

together with their fellows, for respite .

Flown in from before the cold or nightbound

(the light attracted them)

they sought safety (in books)

but ended battering against glass

at the high windows

The Library is desolation, it has a smell of its own

of stagnation and death.

Beautiful Thing!

-the cost of dreams.

in which we search, after surgery

of the wits and must translate, quickly

step by step or be destroyed-under a spell

to remain a castrate (a slowly descending veil closing about the mind

cutting the mind away)

SILENCE!

Awake, he dozes in a fever heat,

cheeks burning . . loaning blood

to the past, amazed . risking life.

And as his mind fades, joining the others, he seeks to bring it back-but it eludes him, flutters again and flies off and

again away .

- "The Library", Paterson, William Carlos Williams