books. their pages splayed,
crinkling in open-window breezes.
books standing at attention in tight ranks,
still and silent in the musty library.

there exists no other land
like a library: old and silent
and stately shelves filling the upper floors:
new and sleek, of glass and chrome
unyielding and practical: and always books.
people drifting as travelers on rhythmic waves,
at home and far a-sea at once,
and always comforted.

books are bulky. books cost money
and are made of rapidly diminishing
wooden resources. are an outdated
nuisance in a century of one-click digital
info and sleek black objects to hold a countless
2-D variety of titles, in the space of one
paperback. illogical.

books books. brush the rough glazed woven
covers. go ahead. pick a shelf
and graze your fingertips
across spines gangly stout stiff
black brown purple gray. books musty
or crisp new formatted factory;

but always that distinctive
type of smell at a spine’s opened crack.
books each one a mystery
waiting to be unearthed
by creaking open a cover.

books can never be replaced.