Listen

It crept
upwards,
back speckled by
the distant
night:
a series of
dot constellations,
moving
and shifting.

The heavy musk
of age
and book pages
is reassuring,
a constant reminder
of home,
where discarded scraps,
old friends,
present themselves with
crumpled grace.

It gazes,
almost soulfully,
at the
towering masses,
the giants
and giantesses
of lore,
their names
printed or
embossed on
their kindred’s
sloping sides.

It
wants
to take
those
words,
devour them
whole,
absorb
them into
itself.

It wants
to
respond
when words
drift
by,
thrown about
so
carelessly
by those
feet
outside
its door.

It takes
what it has
in stride, nibbling on
corners and listening to drifted
words— it delights in what is
found there, on the edges.