The dripping of formaldehyde
Off cornices was all I heard
At first. The buildings lay askew,
Like boulders frost at night has heaved
Into the valley, newly crude
Where broken, smooth where weather-cured.
But other sounds intruded. Clocks,
All wired to one nerve, were clerks
That buzzed with single industry,
And distant talk, like phantom claques
In high and distant galleries,
Whispered and wept in dismal sighs.
I discovered that the corridors
Connected. Walking on, I dozed
And slid my eye along the stone
And wakened only when the dour
Of black imposed a huddled stain
Upon the soft gray neural stone.
She was a nun. She sat amid
Five pillars of books of mad
And uneven heights. She was an arc
Of black before the books, and made
The figure of a bird that lurks
Deep among woods, far in the dark.
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