A holiday in June [poem]

Title

Creator

Daclan, Porfirio S.

Language

English

Year

1966

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

in double-talk when he asks: “Can one read a book in an hour?” The answer is: One can, and often does, read in a book for an hour! Students do it all the time.) Why then do librarians not simply scrap the Reserve Book Section ? The answer is: Although something of an evil, it is a necessary evil. Books “placed on reserve” are particularly selected reference books, which either have been assigned by a professor for the read ng of a whole class (sometimes several classes) or books which must take the place of unavailable or too expensive textbooks. Since a library such as ours cannot afford to have more than a maximum of 10 copies of any particular title, the onlv way to assure that all the students of a class get a fair chance to these books is to restrict the time during which the book may be held by any one reader. Why can’t the library acquire more copies of every title in the Reserve Section, let’s say 20-50 copies, so that, each reader might get hold of the title assigned to him for “the full 24 hours?” In principle, it could be done. But it would mean diverting practically the whole library budget to the purchase of this type of books. This would put an almost complete stop to the further growth of the library and eventually convert it into a collection of outdated and thus practically useless textbooks. (Some college libraries not so far from USC appear to have been built up along those lines. But what libraries they are!) There is yet another important reason for placing books on reserve, and my critic is on its track, when he asks — rhetorically, I am sure — whether the restriction imposed on these books implies “lack of confidence among (sic) the students” and whether “thieves reside (sic) in this university.” If by “thieves” he means professionals, the answer is “no”. But it does not take professional thieves to steal books from a library, and there are some 5,000 reasons in the form of more than 5,000 volumes that have disappeared from our library shelves in the course of the last 15 years to show that books have been stolen by our, oh! so well-behaved students! Unless I am badly mistaken, our students are made of the same kind of stuff like the students in other schools are made of and thus subject to the same temptations — which are, amongst other things, to help themselves to a book, especially if they are hard pressed to meet a teacher’s deadline. (Unfortunately, (Continued on page 28) c57 ^Holiday in £June N holiday in June, a street parade, And you and I are basking Under the yellow vehemence Of the summer sun; It is Sunday at eight And nine and ten o'clock And we are singing While morning comes slowly To where the sun is nooning. Our faces blossom to the touch Of soothing sunlight That enlivens young blood Like the force that with the June rain Gives the green to rain-starved grass In summer-smeared lawns. The sun settles on where your face Is twin flesh and a rose And with a power silent as time Reddens slowly, beautifully, An Eve-face that glows With the quiet redness of a rose And pats a tremor in my breast For my heart dances in typhoon. My mind fashions a song of praise For you are full of the sun's countries I want to burn tenderly, lovingly, With the fire that breeds The blushings of your cheeks I see the metaphors of life in your face. The morning is a creature in the hollow of our minds For it is of the morning we speak In the moment that now is And again is now; Our voices worming through Misty labyrinths of memory: (What's good in the morning? You asked the man beside you Who whispered a language of sighs; Whose sighs punctuated a song). But the morning is a teacher, And the young sun gives us light: We are the young who ride On the float of time Enjoying and weathering The warm extravagance of sunlight Warbling the songs the old have sung In the concerts of time past. I want to hold this moment's Nirvana And speak of morning as a lover lisps The language of the heart's fever But ah, a day is not forever And even if youth is young The lamp burns and then again burns; The flame devours the wick, The fire consumes, the fire consumes the oil. Sing to me the joys of youth And even on a Sunday may I be sad For even in song and mirth, I run To where holidays are fewer: This is the end of my laughter, This is the smoldering of young fire. Porfirio S. Dacian College of Law Aug.-Sept., 1966 THE CAROLINIAN Page Thirteen

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