BOOKS

Sometimes, when I think of the vast wisdom ever

contained in books; countless scriptures of all creeds;

scrolls in indecipherable languages; tomes of science;

the great Library of Alexandria destroyed by fire

centuries ago, priceless knowledge gone; thousands

of books burned by the Third Reich; books still held

secret at the Vatican; hieroglyphs in Egypt and 

whatever Atlantis may have contributed to the written

word; books simply lost and never found; others

molded, fallen apart, discarded, and all the many

books I’ll never be able to read in a lifetime, even if

I lived a thousand years; and when I think of all these

while browsing at garage sales, used bookstores (oh,

the good feel of an old book and the sense of care for

books you surmise some previous owner had; to see

his or her name written on the title page, sometimes

with the date of purchase or gift – yes, then I tend

to hold a book in my hands a little long sometimes,

deliberating whether I’ll buy, and I read again what’s

on the flap; scan a few more pages; look for a keen

phrase here and there; ponder on the title, the design,

the author’s name, weighing it all in my hand . . . and

page after page of long-forgotten lore, adventure and

myth slowly take shape, mingling with my own memory

of myth in the back of my mind, passing through my

skin, stealing into my bones, my heart; holding me

spellbound for a lifetime it seems, and somehow

beneath my feet the deeper caves and mysteries of

the earth open wide where I can glimpse that which I

cannot name but know that it exists; and I’m feeling

strangely rooted and connected to all cultures, wars, beliefs, poems, romance, history, peace, and then I may

take the book home, but as I’m standing here, lost in

time for a while, some power is reclaiming everything

I thought was lost to Man one time, and I see the

Great Communicator of it all in all these many chapters,

paragraphs, sentences, words, working their way with

a purpose, meaning, and conviction across so many

ages, and suddenly it seems that everything is here

now, and really never went away at all as long as books

have ever existed and readers found them, and as I

close the book, walking out to get some fresh air,

there’s all the magic in the air as of old still . . .

and I can live with that and be an open book to all.