Taking Down a Bookshelf

The authors blink only when looked at, they recall for you a story, perhaps a tale half-read. One book lifted, pages fly between thoughts, a few scrapes of knowledge peck and preen again. Phrases return demanding still to be displayed though rarely used. There are mystic scriptures that hover between fiction and non-fiction. I imagine temple beasts still guarding them. I overreach, shake this collected tree of knowledge. Books fall, some like stone, some like fluttering birds. I am ankle deep in the printed word and its aftermath. Some will go to the thrift shop, some to the garage, a few will stay between bookends surviving these winds of change. Today I have time to admire the dance of sunlight on bare walls, the transpiring poetry of blameless space.