The Poem I Found in a Library Book That Was Due Back
The date stamp said 1987. The poem said everything.
I found the poem in a library book that was forty years overdue. The book was a collection of poems by a poet I had never heard of, and the date stamp on the inside cover said 1987, and the poem was tucked inside, a single sheet of paper that had been there for decades.
The poem was not good. It was about the way the library smelled, the way the books were arranged, the way the light came through the window in the afternoon. But it was real, and it was written by someone who had loved the library the way I did.
I read it three times. I stood in the aisle and I read it three times, and I understood that the poem was not just about the library. It was a letter. It was the poet saying 'I was here too, and this is what I noticed, and now it is yours to notice'.
I didn't return the book. I paid the fine and I kept the book and I put the poem in a frame on my desk. The book is forty years overdue and the poem is the proof that the library was the place where a person had been moved enough to write about it.
I still go to the library. I still look for the poems that are left behind. The library is the place where the poems are found, and the finding is the thing that makes the library worth going to.
By Team Writory, for Writory.
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