Library Dukedom
“library/Was dukedom large enough” ~ Prospero
Who needs to be a prince or King of kings?
A library’s dukedom is large enough.
A single folio transports on wings
Of mind: within one moment we can slough
Off heavy circumstance and spring to lands
Undreamed of in our brains before the book
Was opened, fly to emerald sparkling sands
Of palm trees waved above long strands that hook
Around ten thousand atolls and their isles.
If that is what one volume, or one page
Can conjure, then the shelves, the stacks, the miles
Of chapters are as potent as a mage
Of royal line. They are a mental swarm.
They are a tempest waiting to transform.
“There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away” ~ Emily Dickinson