My shelves grow heavy
with volumes of words
I wish I had written, neatly
bound up in books
that stare at me, at once
bidding me welcome
and challenging me to enter.
One shelf is set aside
for books of pages,
blank, on which I have written
each day now for three
and a half years, words
I did write which, on rereading,
I often wish I hadn’t.
I could write in pencil
erase later in the face of regret,
but the pen seals failure
and, I am sure, helps build
character, which I have in excess
… now, I’ve come to the time of relieving my shelves of their burden, especially of those books I have not read although I have kept them waiting decades, and others which I last (and first) read decades ago – read, tasted, swallowed, digested, washed-up – and releasing them back to the community via the charity shops; I used to think that just keeping books around me was a mild form of darshan, but then I came to think this was a bit dead-ended: yet more character to find in letting go … with a smile
An excess of character! Ha! But the books, the books… (sigh)