I Want to Touch You in the Library

I want to touch you in the Library.
Let’s browse the rows and
Lightly finger the spines
And midwife the dust of our mothers.
The pearls of wisdom – don’t forget –
Must be created by the Oyster.
Do you think the Oyster doesn’t
Savor the Creation,
And (even more) relish the release?

Have you ever stroked a calf-skin binding –
Buried your face in the pages –
Opened to a random Truth?
Have you inhaled the
Fragrance of Timelessness
(“Eternity”, if you must), and
Felt the heft of information –
Of Formation –
In formations scientific?
Now, before our vision dims
And, with it, our most noble pleasure,
Our most valuable treasure,
I want to touch you in the Library . . .

Did I miss something?

She whispered a nothing to me once
Across two feet of scarred Formica –
A sound that burned like a hailstone
In the center of my cheek,
And, falling through my pause,
Was crushed irreparably
Beneath my clumsy, ignorant heel.

The Voice of the Oyster

The oyster says nothing
As she forms her pearl.
She keeps
And ponders in her heart
The secrets of her art,
The exultation of her creation.

Saying nothing (again),
When Man, pillaging, plucks the pearl,
Forcing apart her protection
Into a gaping, soundless scream,
Ripping her quiet masterpiece
From her center
With a hollow, animal shout of triumph,
With the slippery glee of violation rewarded.

Who asks the oyster,
“May I please have your pearl?”
Or
“What can I give you in exchange
For your essence, your core?”
Who asks the oyster anything?

She wouldn’t answer anyway, you know.
Not with words – words are for Man,
For the thief, the one with the knife
To prise open the secret,
Precious places.

But put away the blade, the insistence
And listen to the hush of the oyster.
A patient caress,
An appreciative ear,
And her resistant walls unfold.
Her armor opens willingly, shyly,
Mutely,
Almost.
Only a whisper,
A barely sound,
The breath of Life,
The murmur of a treasure
Offered.