Poem of the Week

In the Library
by Charles Simic
There’s a book called

A Dictionary of Angels.
No one had opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She’s very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.

 

Word of the Week

psephocracy, n.
[‘ The form of government which results from the election of representatives by ballot; the system of government by elected representatives.’]
Pronunciation: Brit. /sᵻˈfɒkrəsi/, /siːˈfɒkrəsi/, /sɛˈfɒkrəsi/, U.S. /siˈfɑkrəsi/
Etymology: < psepho- comb. form + -cracy comb. form, after democracy n. Compare psephocrat n.
The form of government which results from the election of representatives by ballot; the system of government by elected representatives.1966 New Statesman 15 Apr. 531/1 How then did Britain..become a democracy?.. It never did… What we do have is representative government, or the rule of the ballot-box, or (in one word) psephocracy.
1970 Sci. Jrnl. Feb. 27/1 The present system [of government] is more of a leadership than a referred system—the so called ‘psephocracy’.
1994 Mod. Law Rev. 57 226 The people are not the government; what they do is elect it; and so the pedant would say we have in this country not democracy, but psephocracy.