Tsundoku

Today’s poem comes from the LiveJournal days, but the problem it discusses is ongoing: the tendency to keep stacks and stacks of unread books around (tsundoku is the Japanese word for this, according to memes that go around occasionally). Nine times out of ten, when I finish one book I pick my next book from my stack, but somehow the stack never gets smaller. I suspect there may be some law of the universe ensuring that the stack of books never actually changes in its size. Once we unlock that secret I have no doubt that our understanding of quantum physics or enable time travel or something equally currently out of reach.

(Also, yes, the photo is of my book stack. Stacks, rather. Theology, Fiction, Non-Fiction.)

Tsundoku

Originally written February 28, 2007

Books,
Unread,
Must wonder
How long a wait
They must endure till
Their awakening comes.
This one murmurs quietly;
That one has a voice like thunder–
What a Babel, a cacophony
If they awoke simultaneously!

Raging against all the technology
Restless, vivid, storming, pulsating
With a power now forgotten,
Just awaiting those who hear,
Those who seek their knowledge,
Those who change the world–
Until that time,
Silently,
They must
Wait.