~ after Borges
Once I told myself I would not buy
another, not until I’d read
the ones I have— But how is it
that in our world, books
seem to outnumber the days,
and the days rush onward faster
than an automated teleprompter?
Once I thought I had all the time
to learn what they had to tell me—
but still I know so little.
Once I read a story where the hero
sought reprieve and in a dream,
was led to one shining letter
on a page, in a library which time
appeared to have forgotten. I know
that isn’t my story— All the same,
I wish sometimes that I might live
in that timeless interval between
the sentence as it made its way
through the rain and its final
pronouncement; for the grace to write
and fill in all the parts still missing.
In response to Via Negativa: Good books.