Facsimile

on visiting Lanier Theological Library, Houston TX. to PT&CK.

—Staying in Texas, guest of college friends;

so odd to greet the winter wearing shorts.

That first day in, directly off the flight,

we drove to Houston, gathering from the heat 

among the well-kept grounds and below the stones

of Lanier’s chapel, and its library.

Beneath those chandeliers and dark oak beams,

we browsed the vast collection of great books;

I mostly looked for what I knew—there was

Hermetica, the Fathers, Zohar—though,

what struck me then was not a book, and not

that beautiful stone chapel we sang in:

it was these tiny fragments, swaddled in glass—

facsimile papyri, broken up—

of Romans six, John eighteen, John nineteen:

their case (more glass) was by the windows—tall,

medieval-esque, reaching towards the sky,

like old cathedrals do. Introībo…

As I scroll through my photos, I recall

that lofted roof, those beams and chandeliers,

even the painted ceilings, and the books,

reflected backwards to infinity

behind—beyond my eyes, and also forwards,

approaching—gathering towards those fraying pieces.