Library

Columns of brick like columns of stone:
Young, like the people.
Books always new, old friends
Who never needed remembering.

Adobe tiles, crevices
Hide a fortress of time, the wars
Always wage themselves,
But the bulwark never walked away.

So much sunshine upon old walls, thread
New silence that is found within:
That true enlightenment
Shining through balmy shadows.

Rain will curtain in and out,
Skeletons of storm, untouched
Specters against the windows,
Where spiders narrow rule.

In the end, we are like them all:
Lines like the pale folds of webs,
The volumes, cradled stories
Building, rebuilding the shelves.