A Librarian on Capitol Hill

My local librarian, Brian Brown, used to work
in the deep recesses of the Library of Congress,
nothing so grand as the sea, merely
a library on Capitol Hill, barely
several acres in size, no bigger
in the scheme of things
than a soup spoon's bowl,
but it held him, it cradled him,
early in his career,
this place as vast as death,
small as life. It reduced him
to a speck in the universe.
The size of him, after all,
was vast and small.
It filled the spoon; it disappeared.