Expression Of Age

Glasses perched low across a crooked nose
His somber eyes rarely lifted
Instead, they grazed over catalogs
Dark ink spilling over them
His hunch, deep, unmoving
As he pored over texts of the past
While his arched skeletal hands
Drew volumes from their shelves
He climbed down from his step ladder
Miniscule against his towering shelves
Clicking against the linoleum
In tidy polished shoes
His brown shirt, tucked into slacks
Sleeves rolled for slender forearms
That hauled the doors open each morning
He tsked at the slightest disturbance
Gazing disapprovingly at those who whispered
In his sacred sanctuary
And when his brown eyes did meet
They shone and they sparkled
With boundless knowledge
With a million stories untold
Eyes of wisdom, of understanding
Before dropping back to his printed pages.