An Afternoon In The Stacks by Mary Oliver

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

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 sentence scarved out when an author

traveled and a reader kept the way open. When this

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.