Study in treescape

Today dear littleonion highlighted to me cutbacks in the North East and the closure of libraries. It stinks really. Something so pure & true being eroded by people who make decisions about our children's education.

Anyway little onion asked me to write & contribute a poem. So I did! Here it is:


I stop, the still small clicking clock
filling my ears as around me people read.
books, papers, magazines, internet,
here they come and with others, like me,
they stop awhile and just be.
hush, says my head,
hush, says my heart,
hush, says a librarian.
a place to be be still.
no crashing cymbal here,
no banging playstation
to affect the rhythm of my heart;
just words, only words.
my link to these places is strong,
reaching back to my childhood
when as a little boy my mother first took me.
the majesty of these books surrounding me,
books for me as a little person,
yet books that were clearly of another world,
a world that was waiting for me.
at school i studied in libraries,
at university too.
the library has been a home
and a place to grow.
so now,
as my library disappears,
my heart weeps,
not for my loss,
but for the loss of those children yet to come.