Fantastic Findings in a Local Library

As the ink of nighttime soaked through the rice-paper sky,
and gusts of generously teasing wind thrust from the ground,
I sought out shelter in the homely warmth of a library
to take in a familiarly sentimental breath of bookish peace.

One must find the simplistic extravagance of the place oddly appealing.
The murky lighting cast off of the mahogany bookcases
in the same fashion that sea waves toss light back into the sky, to the sun,
while the soft flitter of pages flip-flopped between thumbs and forefingers.

My curiosity sought around the maze of wood, tugging me this way and that,
footsteps softened to a faint, girlish shuffle on the thick carpet,
All the while gazing delightfully near the science-fictions, the horrors,
the non-fictional histories, and even the planned-parenting encyclopedias.

And that is when I saw it, when my eyes fell by chance
on the most awe-stealing spectacle I'd ever possibly beheld.

It might have well been spotlighted in the dead center of my sight,
for to it my eyes were attracted like a deathly parched man to a beaming oasis.
There stood, with a gentle, paternal signification, a sleepy bookcase,
adorned with the values of the world's finest literature.

Upon the musky shelves rested the greatest words of all time;
all of them, in a beautifully arranged sadness, and in a single area.
Letter after magnificent letter, printed neatly on worn paper,
joining at odds and ends, lines and curves exquisitely and tediously arranged.

And to think, such cryptic formations make up our preserves of knowledge,
like the Cradle of Life and the Garden of Eden fused in a symbiotic treasure.

In hushed cadences I cooed warmly, as a mother would a bundled child,
trailing my happy finger along the bindings of the elite,
and feeling in some deep awareness welcomed by my humble intrusion,
as if smiled down upon by the ghosts of the now-wordless, themselves.

Oh how I felt more at home among these gems than in any worldly palace!

Yet it is always a disheartening figure, Reality.
I had not a nickel for my love, a nickel for my fancy!
And, thenceforth, mournfully I stumbled away.