Earth and the Librarian
At the library
she passed a tray with little
books of baked earth on it—
Take one,
and eat it;
It is sweet,
and it is shed for you.
How can I live?
said Earth—
Then Abraham
Then an old man came down out of the thicket,
with an axe on his shoulder, and with him
two people made out of light
—one a blameless son,
the other like a Vermeer girl,
on their way back down with the old man.
Still, all the history of the world
happens at once: In the rain, a young man
holds out a blue cloth
to caress her head
at the landing-pier
of the new bride.
You can’t get beauty. (Still,
in its longing it flies to you.)
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