Craving Books

she came back from
Africa, craving knowledge,
the dusty months of tedium
made college look like the
great opportunity it was to drink
in a knowledge of world while
sleeping on clean sheets, calling
her parents if she felt like it,
she even savored the experience
of being the the first to crack the
cover of Organic Chemistry, 2nd ed.,
by Joseph Hornback.
her professors were not so thrilled,
an independent upstart, annoyingly
brilliant who would rather study at
home than lose time listening to
them, beating the fastest path
to knowledge on whatever road
presented itself.
she ignored them, her nose buried
in a book, in a place where she
could find such a rich variety,
she had never appreciated it so
much as when she walked
many months of tedium on
the dusty roads of Africa.

Photograph courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/glassblower/2542926072/