Small Lyrics

                                                Sanborn Library

                                                Dartmouth College

                                                August 24, 2012

I take in the scent of old wood.

It becomes one with me.

I relish what the incense does.

Intoxicant;

A mixture of tobacco, varnish,

Faded sunlight, and memories.

Expectant air hangs;

Sounds muffled.

Stacks of musty, ancient books;

Their raggedness, their dated echoes;

Printed and reprinted talkers;

Bindings imprison words as if they were a jail,

Which, upon spilling open,

Pour forth words;

Painted illusions which connect, harmonize;

Weave ideas into the structure of thought.

Small lyrics of the fates of mountains, men, and morality,

Sung in the silent sheaves of brittle pulped parchment.

I, as those before me, sit under the evaporating light

Of the yellow dimming sun,

To taste the vestiges and essence of all that was wrought before me.