The old library: full

of preserved books
hard-cover descriptions
of the world, obvious

as it once was, shelf after shelf
centuries and days, the times
have changed, people have not

I experience their fortunes, I
dream of it, and all the more
my hungry body reaches

out, to belong closely together
eye for an eye, arm for an arm
and laugh for a laugh, to hear

to smell and to feel, to enjoy
the warmth, to shiver from the cold
and sometimes to cry together with grief

in a full life