What professions could you aspire,
with your sky-wide hands—a mountain for hire?
A stepper, a stomper, a mammoth barbarian?
Surely there’s something—must you be a librarian?
Look at your size! It doesn’t make sense!
You sat just now on the library fence!
The ‘brary doors open ‘low even your knees
The shelves at your toes! The people like fleas!
You could never succeed as a little librarian.
No less than a lion could eat vegetarian!
I told him all that. Fact, I told him twice!
But a dream is no more a gift than a vice.
For my giant had dreamt of a future so long
filled with books-upon-books, snug where they belong.
He’s clung too far n’ too fast to simply comprise,
‘for he’ll give up his dream, he’ll alter his size!
Thus he searches the land for the littlest books,
hoping each tiny page will change how he looks
One day, he imagines, he’ll fit through those doors.
He’ll walk through the stacks—how a dream can endure!
With thousands of little books scooped up in his arms,
the giant starts reading ‘til he’s learned every word.
But a thousand, a million, no number of verses
could shrink down that giant to the size of a person.
Closing the cover, his dreams ‘gan to fade
the shelves and the stacks—the future he’d made.
‘til a comforting voice squeaked all of a sudden
What a wonderful book! Could I check out this one?
The giant looked downward, right under his nose
at a thousand odd books shelved right in his toes
I warned and I cautioned, now I must carry-in,
no ‘brary keeps books like the giant librarian!
