Don’t Go Into The Library

I’ve been wanting to share this poem all day, but it’s been one meeting or event or interruption after another.  One of those days.  So, here on nearly the last day of Poetry Month:

DON’T GO INTO THE LIBRARY

The library is dangerous –
Don’t go in.  If you do
You know what will happen.
It’s like a pet store or a bakery –

Every single time you’ll come out of there
Holding something in your arms.
Those novels with their big eyes and wagging tails.
Those non-nonsense, all-muscle Dobermans,

All nonfiction and business,
Cuddly when they’re young.
But then the first page is turned and no turning back.
And those sleek, fast, beautiful greyhounds: poems.

The doughnut scent of it all, knowledge,
The aroma of coffee being made
In all those books, something for everyone,
The deli offerings of civilization itself.

The library is the book of books,
Its concrete and wood and glass covers
Keeping within them the very big
Very long story of everything.

The library is dangerous, full
Of answers.  If you go inside,
You may not come out
The same person who went in.

–Alberto Rios