Libraries are easily darkened
portals of bright light
bookending bad days.
But people love to survive
and enlightenment gathers
light in the aisles—
finely crafted formulas
the only approaches to governance
books of screws
surgical procedures
heirloom recipes
chaotic trends
countless trademarks
delicate fabrications
unending numbers
missing works of tremendous art
and histories of the uncreated
with a cup of coffee to enhance
so many things have come before!
Then outside
a fire alarms the angry streets
and soon the doors are broken
leaving nasty kids
to piss upon the scrolls.
The elders die.
The king wants to put up some luxury condos
and the censors locate
for the purists to redact.
Defund. Pillage. Tsunami.
Whatever is needed to silence centuries.
Yet deep in this darkness
some poor prophet has a notion, gets
illuminated by illegible ledgers
of surviving texts
of ancient playwrights.
And because those words are beautiful
or because the suffering
of denying the truth is just too complicated
or just because the Earth must molt
like some disgusting arthropod
the light breaks through again:
The library reappears
and a new spider hangs in the sun.
I call this portal Alexandria.
It is a place for human goodness.
But tomorrow holds a tremor
and there are many arsonists.
2019-2020