All knowledge is contained, but not in words.
The sparrows cannot tell the mice below
The art and joy of flight. The things they know
Just fit inside the hollow bones of birds.
And so it is with books, although I try
To case in words the things that only hands
Can truly hold. The body understands:
I love to bind as sparrows love to fly.
The feel of book blocks in the nipping press,
The fragrances leather, glue and glaire,
The paring of a hide, the ways that papers tear –
The body knows things language can’t express.
My books contain so many things I know –
Some things they say, and some they simply show.

Originally posted on Making Light, part of a meditation on books and knowledge (starting at comment 135).