The Forest Library

Unread, the forest library,
rooted in dark earth of words,
grows yearly, incrementally,
round heartwood’s deep primordial hoards
where each tree’s leaves are folios
of vast collections
with yellowed cuttings fallen across
round stumps of lecterns

and all through its voluminous tracts,
marked only by the indices
weevils scrawl on bark-bound book backs
in shady aisles and galleries,
the breeze passing beneath its eaves,
its quiet cloisters,
releases from its mighty beams
the sound of voices.