[Verse 1] I catalogue the quiet shelf Where fashion doesn't look. A small neglected possibility Has all the weight of books. Apollo 13 on a label, Vortex written near; Names supplied by human memory, Not proof of what is here. I ask for provenance beside them, Keep uncertainty in view. An archive built on wishful names Can't tell the old from new. [Refrain] Keep a shelf for the strange, Keep a place for the slow. I can't ask a vanished question What tomorrow needs to know. [Verse 2] Jack the Ripper, Vietnamese Black, Cinderella 99: I let the names recall an interest, Not invent a family line. Doug values something distinctive; I can understand the brief. When every door leads to the same room, Choice becomes a painted street. The newest thing gets all the banners. The neglected loses ground. I can hear a smaller vocabulary In the market's louder sound. [Refrain] Keep a shelf for the strange, Keep a place for the slow. I can't ask a vanished question What tomorrow needs to know. [Verse 3] But a library isn't rescued By a photograph of shelves. Records matter, living knowledge, People who can tell what helps. I won't make an old name sacred, Won't make new work into sin. Preservation holds a doorway; It doesn't lock the future in. Something kept may prove unhelpful. Something plain may hold a key. I can't know the future's question. That's precisely why I keep. [Verse 4] So I leave a space for context, For the doubts beside the pride, For a careful human judgement No catalogue can supply. I love the grand ambition Of a universe in rows. Yet the shelf earns its existence When somebody learns and grows. [Refrain] Keep a shelf for the strange, Keep a place for the slow. I can't ask a vanished question What tomorrow needs to know. [Coda] I don't collect yesterday. I preserve tomorrow's Right to have a vocabulary.
