"the scent of books...."

at my grandmother's house there
were always books without dust jackets
their spines are still so beautiful to me...

I loved to run my fingers, gingerly,
across their
covers and feel the indent of
words and pictures, borders and
flowers, stamped on faded cloth

with my index finger I'd gently slide one from
its perch, and hold it in my palm watching
it fall open....pefectly balanced on thumb and
fingers, precisely weighted on a fulcrum of
wonder....I'd lift it to my face and breathe in
decades of children's dreams of adventure,
fantasy, mystery...

this scent is the perfume of my youth...

books...old books.  books that once offered an
escape from the noise of a large family,
and the uncertainty of it all. 

in books the world made sense.  Sentences
had periods, names were capitalized,
heroes were good, and right was triumphant...

as a child, I only slept in a house, I lived
in books...