Not every day but most days that summer
I went calmly and quietly and climbed
to the sixth floor of the library and walked
not fast and not slow but with purpose
down the last row and reached
almost without looking to the same
place on the shelf and pulled out
the large book and carried it to a chair
that looks out toward the ridge, to a mountain
that is there, whether it is or it isn’t,
the mountain people love, maybe for this,
love and die with all their love,
trying, and I opened to the page
where I left off before, and sometimes the library
announced it was closing, sometimes I got hungry,
sometimes it looked like rain, and I’d close the book
and carry it again, with purpose, back to its exact
place on the shelf, and I’d walk down the stairs
and out of the building, and it was like
I’d left it ticking.
