I saw you today
it had been so long
Too long? Who knows
but anyhow

Our eyes caught
Yours brown
Mine blue-green
Spinning an eternity
between us

You nodded, I think
didn't smile
I'm not sure if I nodded back
but who knows

Libraries are romantic
They are piles and shelves of words of love
and lust
Stacks full of secrets
a kiss discretely
Hands grasped
stories told

Could we have been that kiss, those hands?
maybe, but who knows

I have written your name so many times
Scratched you out until you are, were
nothing but words and hopeless yearning

and yet now, here you are
With your nod
Those eyes

an eternity between us

Broken
by the books
I still have to shelve

I just ordered
My third cup of coffee
After all, I am in good company
Words spilled before me.

Could they have known —
I will always look for
The smell of old books
In this digital world.

Words, my words,
My heart treasures
To put pen to paper.

Time is unkind
For a writer,

Nothing is ephemeral.

You are
A page marked by a folded corner
A love I will come back to
In the future.

The Dictionary.
The library of words.
The keep. The record.
A friend and helper to all.

The place of meaning,
By its very definition.
The book of many editions,
In numerous forms.

Calm, lies the water under the Bridge,
As the Ox laps from the gleaning Ford.
The Web aligns the stars,
As the Long man reclines,
Searching for the meaning of a word.

if you're lucky enough
she will show you
the library she has for a brain
she'll show you the books
about the ones
who never took the time
to read her front to back
start to finish
she'll show you
the books she reads
over and over again
the ones she can never put down
and those she's too afraid to read again
and perhaps
she'll even let you
read the book
that's got a lock and key
sitting in the back
of her mind
collecting dust

•|||°

I love the warm smell more than baked bread.
I love the old stories flooding back through my head.
I love the middle-age chatter, with child like mutters,
finding old favorites in old familiar covers.

I love the personalised fountain-penned message,
carefully scribed and meticulously dated.
I don't care about the number of dog eared pages,
or the tell-tale signs of well worn aging.

Tea stains and small tears - they don't bother me,
each tell a new tale beyond what I can see.
I love the weight of the years sitting in my hand,
I love the tether to past lives multi-second-hand.

With memories of libraries with warm worn carpets,
wall to wall adventures and sun faded artists,
battered yellow seats, shooshed conversations,
quietly spoken protests at the books being rationed.

I stayed past closing, riding trains of free thought
with Tin Tin, Asterix and old Mrs Pepperpot.
I'm still drawn to the pages and the feeling inside
second-hand stories where memories reside.