You are standing in a library, the shelves silent and wary of your presence
They ponder upon the actions to be taken, the arm to be outstretched
What binding will be caressed, which embossed letter tentatively outlined
What feather light nock of a fingertip in the curve of the binding gap
Pulling the book out of alignment slightly, the cover glanced upon briefly
And suddenly disregarded, shoved without grace or care back to its place
As you walk down the aisle, the lights reaching only the spines
Eyes flickering up and down, back and forth, looking for something
A special thing, a hidden thing, a thing that belies its existence
Tells of it from far away, a spoken whisper of a secret carried by the wind
The scent of a loaded cast iron skillet humming away on its stove
Sizzling, the popping, the hiss, aromatics being carried to every corner
The knowledge is floating on the wind, the words, the secrets, the power
It caresses your cheek, as your four fingers brush the shelves as you walk
The smells of paper and parchment, leather and string, folded press works
Between it all the effervescence of the new thing, the strange thing
The book that hides its secret, sitting on a shelf unreachable
Its binding is black, with no letters, no marker, plain and simple
True knowledge is plain and simple. It requires no magic of its own
It is built upon the things that came before it, the shoulders and shelves
Of other works and other obvious things that required only understanding
This black book is such a thing, risen above your shoulders, riding a precipice
Astride the gulf of learning, one foot planted in ignorance, the other, more
Questions waiting to be asked, and felt, and explored to other questions
Somehow, you manage to climb the shelves, starting with a simple stool below
And relieve the black book from its wary sleepy sisters and brothers
A fine coating of dust slipping from its compressed pages, the silt of time
And books that came before, explorers alone, looking for their new secrets
You flip open the hard earned prize, and find the words you felt reaching
Out to you, they are open to you, they are yours for the taking
Experience begets satisfaction, then it delivers momentary relief
Like an insatiable lover that can never be truly pleased, the need is
All consuming, and pushes relentlessly for more, for more, for more
The exploration of this new knowledge blossoms within and starts to consume
It brings sadness, it brings guilt, its own presents that were not obvious
Or expected, but that does not make anything less real for the recipient
Hands are shaking, pupils pin point like an opioid addict ignoring the pain
This new experience is not what you wanted, but yet it is, this dichotomy
Of split facades between what was and what is and what shouldn't be
The burden of your new knowledge is not the insight you sought, you craved
It is not the release you were looking for, or the answer you needed
Instead it is all the things you wanted to avoid in the first place by looking
Irony in the forbidden knowledge as it suffuses your person and shifts
Your views, shattering in slow motion, cascading like a waterfall of reflections
Inferred, but not seen, observed, but not measured, taken, yet let loose
This terrible curse rides your shoulders now, a jockey on your neck, slapping
A crop against your cheek, jeering and kicking heels, waiting for movement
As you stand there, riven, paralyzed by the wisdom that you should not have looked
The audacity of the seeking is rewarded by the damning of your past self
You now know that the future self is tainted by the currency of the moment
Your mind trading information with it's own states in perpetual shame and fear
The whisper of the books is taken from you, the smells fade towards the light
And you still remain, the fingers clutching the edges of the black book
The stages of grief becoming all the more real by the moment, acceptance
It is yours now. This thing. This thing you wanted and sought so dearly for
This bit of madness wrapped in plastic, shrouded like a corpse of something
Desired and rejected, lusted for and replaced, desperately sought and never
Forgotten, will it ever be? It cannot, since it is now know, it is in the light
The kings and queens look upon thee, and weigh, measure, and have found wanting
This is the dark fear, the deep one, the one that compels to all action
It pushes on you still, a fire behind and below, the pinch of the pitchforks
The steam, guttural and pitching, upwards as the pressure increases
The scream touches off, the whistle of the engine announcing its birth, its
Presence in and of itself, the dangers of the fire contained within, maelstrom
Rage is there, yes, Fear is there, undoubtedly, the dangers of this simple
Thing is not simple, it is not measurable, but it will crush you under itself
You hoped for something else this time, something different, but it does not
Change like the seasons, or like the tide, or like a temporary event, it is
Now, present, here and now, but behind like your solemn chanting footsteps
And before you, a lit path of stumbling rocks and hidden holes, evergreens
On either side, encompassing you, the dark of the trees, their whispered secrets
And this is your library, these are your shelves, and they judge not
Everything is temporary. Even this. Even now. Everything is forgotten.
You scream, you fight, it matters not. You rage against the dying of the light
But this matters only to the shadows waiting to build encompassing dark
And then something extraordinary happens, like the moment a black hole is born
Out of nothing, something, a raging inferno of energy, a fount unlimited
Hope becomes, Hope builds, and Hope exists because everything is temporary.