Bibliophilia

Bibliophilia

They meant wealth, once, the leather-rank library

where shelves rose to the high ceiling, and a ladder

wheeled to access the highest rows. A love

of learning, or perhaps an investment, or only

a mark of class, pages of many volumes not even cut.

Even now they might be a brand declaring

your tribe, as when a classmate asked my son,

Why does your house have so many books?

Or my visitor, who gazed around our living room

and bluntly demanded, Where are your books?

Feeling accused, I led her to our studies

where crammed bookshelves line the walls, but

I could tell she wondered why we wanted to hide

them, and still didn’t think we had enough.

Recently I saw wallpaper printed

with book-lined shelves, a few books

leaning as if they’d just been replaced

by a living hand. Less dusting, less worry

over mildew and silverfish, which devour books

with as much relish as some humans.

A nod, at least, to the memory of books.

Now I could download a favorite novel,

read it on a machine-that scrolls the text,

eliminating the rustle and feel of turning

pages, the invisible fingerprints

of library patrons, living or dead,

who journeyed this way before. The scent

of paper slowly returning to earth.

Here in the used book store in the fading

light of September, I hold a book I’ve loved

but never purchased, and one I’ve been meaning

to read it seems forever, wondering where

I’ll put them, which books I can let go

to make room for these. I weigh the heft

of them, thinking how each will feel

as I hold it, then let it drop

after the words have blurred in the first

chapter of sleep, and my husband

lifts it gently from my hands

crossed above my heart.

Mary Makofske