The Hardbound Book

Lyrics:

© Grathy
The Hard-Bound Book

I pick up the book,
It’s leather clothes
Worn but not fragile,
And I open it to the beginning.

There,
The earlier chapters
Stare at me with their open vowels,
Easy verbs and short simple sentences.

Just a predictable plot,
A straight line
That’s not hard to follow.

I flip forward,
The chapters are longer now,
The dents in the page of
So many characters,
Aborted adventures,
And lessons learned…

The plot has gotten thicker,
Nuance, subtrifuge,
Built upon earlier chapters
Of letters that fall into line
Like obedient soldiers.

Turning, turning
The pages that follow…
Where the ink hasn’t quite dried,

I wonder which way
The story will go,
Will there be
A rush of water,
A cleansing,
Or perhaps a dam.

With each page,
Each chapter adding weight,
Many more lines
And paragraphs
In a hurry to fill the page…

And finally,
A dénouement
Pushing toward the end of the story,
The final epilogue, before the book is closed.