The Librarian

THE LIBRARIAN

—for Philip Larkin

I work all day, and come home at night—

Living in this soundless old dark house

With its curtain-edges and old-fashioned

Stained-glass windows catching the light   

Seeing what I’ve always seen: parents

And grandparent’s death, and mine next.

A whole day nearer now, making thought 

Impossible, how and where and when I 

Shall myself die. This arid interrogation, 

The dread of dying, and being dead,

Coming daily to grab and horrify me.

My mind grows blank, deep in remorse—

For the things not done, the love not given, 

Time torn up unused—wretchedly because   

A closeted life lasts only so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, then it’s over;   

But in the total emptiness toward the end,

The knowing extinction that we travel to

And shall be lost in always, it’s here & now,   

Not anywhere else, and soon; nothing’s more 

Terrible, nothing’s more true than the Now.

This is a special way of being afraid—

No bridge game dispels it, religion useless,

One’s life a moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die, even tho

We never really lived, fearing a thing we’ve

Never felt, here in this closet where there’s

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think 

With, nothing to love or link with, for this is

The anesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of thought—

An avoided unfocused fear, a big chill that

Freezes each impulse down to indecision.   

Most affairs don’t ever happen: this one will,   

And realizing it no longer surprises one, when

We’re caught without a lover or someone to

Give us courage even if they’re no good;

It means not scaring others, being brave on

Your own, edging toward the grave, death no 

Different than being a Librarian all these years.

Slowly light weakens, and the house dims—

Closets are plainly not just for one’s wardrobe.

What we know, what we don’t know, what

We can’t escape, and yet have to accept even

Though we can’t accept it. One day I’ll have 

To go, regardless of the attic, closets, and my

So-called unlived life. The telephone crouches

Getting ready to ring with nobody to answer, this

Old house cold in the winter with the dead elms

Reaching their branches and fingers into the sky.

Here in this closeted little college town that I

Never escaped from, nor even tried, coasting

From year to year there in the stacks, hiding

In the William Allen White Library where work

Was to be done, an intricate world full of

Books white as clay, with no sun, just words

Like postmen and doctors coming and going 

From house to house with nobody there.