Pairings: Hilary Moreton

Hillary Moreton

Library Assistant(Digitisation)

I find myself in this waiting room for books.

This vast building is needed to keep all the silence in.

Thousands of volumes stand in readiness on the shelves.

With infinite patience they wait to be taken down and opened.

Words to be seen, and not spoken.

There are so many questions, answers and thought processes kept here being preserved and shared.

The quietest sounds are the loudest.

A ringing telephone is startling.

All my notes can be rubbed out. Ink is not permitted, my pencil is precious.

Navigate by letters and numbers. I sit in a bay where there are no boats, only books. I can’t see out, but the sun streams in lighting up the gold leaf, the brass fittings and the delicately carved fruit.

Watched over by the white marble men, I shiver in winter and simmer in the summer, but I can’t believe my luck to be spending my days in the great glass room of black and white squares and whispers.