Reflections on Academic Freedom

Hidden with exactitude between a row of enervating decimals.
A burglar in the vault! A rat in the pantry!
Here is a burning book, and this Edifice to Wisdom quivers--
auburn leaves swept in a raging wind
But the empire's shrines number eight hundred eighty four
Who would notice the loss of one more?
Here is a burning book, smoldering softly,
no one sounds the alarm.

The words of great sages half-remembered dance impishly
freed from their white and black prison garb,
parallel bars, neatly aligned, now curling now contorting
Now no longer so serious.
Confucius, Mencius, the goodly Duke and wise advisors;
Doff their courtly attire as if stripping for a bath.

Aristotle looks down from his desk (Plato's head is still in the clouds)
Jesus and Moses kneel to pray for rain.
Smith and Marx can't find a hired man to douse the flames.
The Apostles are less worried than their idols. For in the shrines
there are many more bibles than burning books.

I thought shrines today had no need for light?
Elsewhere in the empire:
Books fit on metal pane we suspend in glowing prism.
But this is an Edifice to Wisdom, and so censors dot musty halls
Its said the fumes can soothe inflamed joints,
the ashes mixed with book-binding glue can clear the skin.
A disbeliever would faint and be revived a scholastic.
But no one reads the burning book.