A shelf in dreams

I have a shelf in my dreams
which dreams of books
yet unread, calling from
miles apart, times and destinies apart
I keep on piling in them
new collections which were never read
and someday when the time is ripe
and the fruits of imagination would have dried
washed in the blue smoke of life
and the tree from beyond would have
devoured all its fruits
and the mountains will turn back on its rivers
time will be still

Books still the time in you
to carve this image which would never be,
better than the images which are
to curb the violence of the world
and turn the cycle of life.

I will return to books and clean my shelf
for dust of centuries have laid its hands
there is someone who comes, sees, lays hands on
my books of dreams and yet cleans not
for history resides in all we read
and future in what will be read.

So yet in the future till it comes
I will ask the carpenter of my dreams
to build more stacks, for books to fill my future
where all those which you read, and which
you hold out with your hands will be mine too
to dissolve in the ever non-existent time