is what I do each day in this cellar of books,
fingering each letter as potential treasure
among shopping lists, invoices, thankyous—
I enter a stranger into his mind, her mind,
access secret sentiments,
eavesdrop on opinions reserved for one,
share satisfactions, distractions, retractions—
all in search of a scholar’s life.
I admit my shame to the librarian:
“It’s what an archivist must do,” he says,
“Turn every page,” says Robert Caro,
who turned countless pages
to find LBJ a crook and a savior,
Robert Moses a tyrant and a dreamer.
I’m researching a saint,
albeit without a mosaic crown or two miracles
(but in three boxes of letters I’ve seen dozens!),
and yet I turn page after page,
with no small guilt
at this voyeur’s task.