MUSIC
POETRY
2010
PRESS
NARRATION
ABOUT US
COMEDY
Books
Sometimes, when I think of the vast
wisdom ever contained in books—
countless scriptures of all creeds; scrolls in
indecipherable languages; tomes of science;
the great Library of Alexandria destroyed by
fire centuries ago, priceless knowledge gone;
thousands of books burned by the Third Reich;
books still held secret at the Vatican;
hieroglyphs in Egypt and whatever Atlantis
must have contributed to the written word;
books simply lost and never retrieved;
others molded, fallen apart, discarded,
and all the many books I’ll never be able to read in a
life-time even if I lived a thousand years;
and when I think of all these while browsing
at garage sales, used bookstores—(o, the good
feel of an old book and the sense of care for
books you surmise some previous owner had;
to see his or her name written on the title page,
sometimes with the date of purchase or gift)—
yes, then I tend to hold a book in my hands a little long
sometimes, deliberating whether I’ll buy,
and I read again what’s on the flap; scan a
few more pages; find a keen phrase here and there;
ponder on the title, the design, the author’s
name, weighing it all in my hand . . . and
page after page of long-forgotten lore, myth, and
adventure slowly take shape and mingle with
my own memory of myth in the back of
my mind, passing through my skin, stealing
into my bones, my heart, holding me spellbound
for a life-time it seems, and somehow beneath
my feet the deeper caves and mysteries of the earth
open wide where I glimpse that which
I cannot name but know that it exists;
and I’m feeling so strangely rooted and connected
to all cultures, beliefs, poetry, romance, peace,
wars and history . . . and I may take the book home,
maybe not—it doesn’t matter, for as I’m
standing here, simply lost in time for a while,
some power is reclaiming everything I thought
was lost to man one time, and I see the
Great Communicator of it all in all these
many chapters, paragraphs, sentences, words
working their way with a purpose, meaning,
and conviction across so many ages,
and suddenly it seems that everything is all here now
and really never was gone at all as long as
books have ever existed and readers found them,
and as I close the book, walking out to get some fresh air,
there’s all the magic in the air as of old still, and
I can live with that and be an open book to all.
© 2004 Freddy Niagara Fonseca
Published in the Neovictorian/Cochlea, Madison, WI in 2006
and in Winning Writers Newsletter Online, August 15, 2006.
The poem has been on permanent display at Revelations Cafe & Bookstore, Fairfield, Iowa since December 2004 and is now available as a broadside and bookmark at same store.
The author with his poem at Revelations, Fairfield, Iowa.
Design and copyright 2009 Freddy Niagara Fonseca
Fairfield Creates
