The Library by Jack Mitchell

The Library

by Jack Mitchell

The library, the city’s heart,

   Once stood here, long forlorn

Before the city fell apart,

   Before the books were torn

And scattered, rotting leaf by leaf:

   A fragmentary poem

Speaks of the passing poet’s grief

   On meeting some dead tome.

Here Shakespeare’s works once stretched, complete;

   Here every orphaned name,

Audens and Tennyson and Keat,

   Had readers, not mere fame;

Perhaps in some untouched hard drive,

   Defying time’s decay,

The Sonnets may be found alive

   And bless our latter day.