The Moon of Books

Praised be the moon of books!

What did she mean by that phrase?

Whatever she intended,

It’s up to you, now, to bring

The meanings to it. The moon

That orbits a planetoid

Of books, scrolls and codices,

Enough of a library

To bend gravity a bit,

To attract an asteroid

And capture it for a moon?

Or maybe this moon of books

Functions for the books themselves

As the moon of Earth functions

For Earth’s grave mass of poets,

That ancient image invoked

Whenever the volumes need

To sound profound in some way,

Some vaguely serious way.

But how would books get a moon?

Maybe this moon’s made of books,

A silvery library,

All dust and compressed insects,

Discarded but orbiting

What? What possible planet

Would a moon made up of books

Circle servilely, mutely,

Despite craters and mountains

Of languages, globe of words,

Sphere of phrases? An old soul

Of skulls, all the human skulls

Rolled up together, that’s what,

Not some rock and iron world,

Not a vaporous giant—

A planet of bones, near which

Spins this airless, battered mass

Of impacts, the moon of books.