Life’s Library

A hurricane swept through
Life’s Library
Disguised as a librarian
In a hooded cloak
Scattering hither and thither
Each exquisite hand-bound
Work of art and eloquence
Until the floor was strewn
And littered with pages
Golden edges glistening
In sunshine and moonlight
Until dust coated and obscured them
Leather bound covers
Laying as a thousand stepping stones
With linen threads dangling
And tangling eventually with spiders webs
Each fragmented work of words
Leaving The Library’s heart in tatters
As pages swirled like leaves
Each a testament to the broken promise
Of protection and love
The false librarian made
Gathering in drifts of ruination
As roof asunder and broken beams
Allowed every element
To add to the destruction
While shattered stained glass shards
Lining what window-frames remained
Shine the only happy hues of hope
Over the terrible scene of wreckage
With as much if not more counted as lost
As Alexandria’s once noble hall
In tribulation The Library fell
Into ever increasing disarray as time
The changing seasons
And storms without number
Battered the ruins
While The Library despaired
That anyone might ever come
To repair the damage
Until it seemed impossible
That the stacks might ever be made right
And beauty return to that hallowed place
But then
One day
A quiet soul happened upon
The library he once knew
And drawn by chance or fate
He entered through the hole left
By once majestic doors
Tiptoeing almost silently
Through chamber after chamber
Of the massacred Library
Until he reached the heart
The innermost chamber
Where he silently set to serve
Picking up the pages
Dusting off the dirt
Reuniting covers with
Each newly discovered work
Books that once existed
Now may be no more
But new works came together
From the trash upon the floors
Shelf by shelf
And row by row
Bright Fame
Works days and nights
Ceaseless and unrecognized
Putting things to rights
The beams, the rafters, and the roof
Repaired against all gales
The shelves are standing once again
Polished, reinforced, dovetailed
Set to last a thousand years
With rainbows of happy scenes
As kintsukuroi’d stained glass
Paints perfected, happy dreams
Much work has been accomplished
And much is yet to do
But, oh! the Famed One will never cease
Until the job is through
He then intends to take a home
Within The Library’s halls
To leisure and live happily
Safe behind the walls

⁂

What if Alexandria could be restored or is total destruction really finality?

It seems to me that right now there’s someone in the library quietly picking up the pages, reuniting the books, and reshelving things where they ought to be.