Robert Tilleard

A BOOK BINDER\'S LAMENT

You write asking for a book to be bound.

A book by all known scribblers and scrawlers

Containing all the words of truth and untruth -

Whether they be fake facts or true fiction.

Weighty words written over the ages,

First on scrolls and now on printed pages.

You wish they be let slip as bounding hounds:

Those textual retrievers and pointers

On a paper chase littering knowledge.

Yet you insist they must first be kennelled,

Confined by walls of leather and buckram,

Kettle stitched by us artisan warders,

Encased in stiff board and burdened with weights.

This utters volumes as a paradox:

You eat the cake yet keep it in the cake box.