A house without books, is like several looks

At where the hands on a clock-face

Show more than 12 hours in a row,

Endless hours where the mind withers

And the words you don’t read have no

Perch or vine or place to put in roots.

No frame to place around an Old Master,

solid marble waiting in untouched blocks

For the sharp hit of a chisel tip;

Nothing at all but a looseleaf notebook

With empty pages where ink never took.