Past Tense

On an anonymous street in an ancient town
built below university walls,
a book store is open
at unusual hours.

Full of youthful browsers,
it was our haunt for years.
No new print pheromone
or stacked successes here,
no glossy paper protection
just the musty intrigue
of dignified, if faded, volumes foxed
by previous hands,
red rot halted just in time
for covers bowed by age.

Much thumbed, well read
volumes of classical thought
that open unbidden at a certain page
or reveal spidery comments
in the margin. Once a letter fell,
flattened by years of bondage-by-book,
fine copperplate told of
love and forgotten promises.

Made multifaceted
by their history
these beautiful ruins have more to tell
than all the words inside.