This week’s photo has been graciously donated by: Ted Strutz.
The place was massive! I had to lean my head all the way back to see the ceiling and the bookshelves went that high!
The quiet wrapped me within its embrace. Long tubes of flickering lights bathing everything in a warm, yellow color and oh the smell! The delicious aroma of aging paper covered by miles and miles of ink forming words, forming stories. Bindings creaked happily, opened by my willing hands. I could read! My brain rejoiced! Letters turning into words, turning into sentences that turned into paragraphs of beautiful word-smithing.
Whilst on my walkabout just the other day, I came across a man quite odd in his ways. Oh he seemed a rather nice, fanciful chap with a pen between his teeth and a feather in his cap.
He dribbled and he drabbled this way and that then placed his tablet beneath his hat.
I say what’s that you’re doing there kind old chap, I asked beside myself my curiosity a chagrin.
He smiled up at me, or down I’m not quite sure and said to me straight-faced his words did not slur.
I’m the Keeper of the Post, I am that’s for sure. Been doing it nigh on one thousand years.
That’s absurd I said with a smile, you’re not a day over 50 I can tell by the shape of your shirt, the tilt of your head and your lack of beguile.
Absurd or not, I tell you it’s true but it doesn’t really matter to me or to you. I check and I follow and I mark these old paths, for travelers like you to get where they are going on their little pitty pats. He looked down at his own shoes worn through and thin, then sighed ever so forlornly, oh no not again.
I’ve walked and I’ve walked until now these shoes too, can carry me no more to deliver the news.
What have you news of that needs be delivered, I heard myself ask without even a thought. And with that I was wrought with such news galore, the sun nearly sat on that old gentlemen’s shores.
He railed me with tales of El Corozon, how the sign was off by one toenail long. Though Quililanda was marked quite correctly, the arrow it pointed quite temperamentally.
I felt this man of great deed deserved the respect only men like him need. I gave him my shoes and he gave me his pair, then it was time to go with a wink and a stare.
Impure indeed! How absolutely insidious that you would infer to me, to me that one single creation of mine has been a mistake.
Look upon that glossy sea and what is it that you see? Thousands of miles of ocean blue filled with whale and squid, enough food for all.
The sandy beaches are pristine white, reflects the sun and makes more light. Brings warmth then rain to this fair earth that is me and mine.
What’s that you say? Look again? Remove the luscious green vines from my eyes, that I might see and become once again wise?
What folly is this? What twist of fate? Mother Nature does not make mistakes! What’s done is done but can be undone. An experiment it was handed down from above, to see if a sentient one could respect the bounds.
Alas he could not and it’s sad to me, I loved watching the little boys climb my trees, while little girls with hair in curls played among my whipper whorls.
The boys did grow to wield mighty axes. The girls no longer took their lessons in herbs, and plants and all things green.
In all these millennium I must admit, Mother Nature has had a slip. I will put things back to right, one more fortnight and we can heal once this plaque has wrought its deal.
He came to me in a dream the King of all Kings Not sure that I believed He had come looking just for me
Why choose I? I cast a suspicious eye It is not as though I’m some Great Specter in the sky
Do you remember at five years old? You walked alone down a long dusty road Upon the ground you found five cents I bid you place it into your pocket
I do remember this clearly that day Taking another’s money did not sit well with me anyway I asked you to trust me that no ill will would come
Your journey continued you began to hum What is that tune you hum my little friend? I’d certainly like to hear it again and again Before long we hummed in unison accord
That’s when the road took a left through a mighty fjord I fear the water it’s so deep and so fast Your eyes frightened by that waning avast
It is said at that moment a bridge did appear They crossed over together without any fear Might I ask you kind King of all Kings If you can do that can’t you do all things?
To aid the hungry and in deep despair You fed the whole church and fed the whole village with that coin found in some far off pillage It brought riches galore and money unending
He knelt down beside me my hands held in his It is not for me to do for you my son But for you to do things on your own
He raised his robed arm, and before me I saw Two peaks in the sky a new sun did yaw That nickle you held in your pocket so long? Is passed down through the ages one by one
Yet you did not use it a whit? Instead you took those riches gained there And carried my children with ultimate care So now the time is come for you to rest
You have a choice to sleep or to pass Into the heavens among angels and saints They aren’t pearly gates but a doorman does wait A nickle will do it He said with a wink
I’ve watched her do it a hundred times, no, two hundred! Push this button and, nope, screen went blue, not good. I’ll just try this other one with that Apple thing on it, she uses it the most to write on and doesn’t cuss at it as much as this other all blue one. What’s this now? An R? On the one that isn’t an Apple thingy.
I’ll push the R, for red so the blue will go away. And push! Sirens? What? I’ve attempted to access an adult restricted site? Why would someone put an adult restricted site on a kids computer? Oh right, these are moms computers. One for working for money and one for working for free …. writing. She says that all the time.
Ok, I’ll just push this one, C for clean up. That’s the ticket. I’ll hold it down over and over again until I’ve cleaned it all up. And swoop! That was the last one.
Hey mom! Come and see what I’ve done! I’ve completely cleaned up both your computers, all shiny, new and blue.
Little Koda lays here beside me for hours, waiting for this monster COVID to let go of me. My big girl patrols outside, waiting too. Waiting. Waiting while so sick and alone would truly be intolerable without my furry loves.
The nightmare came again. Yellow goo swallowing me into a diseased COVID haze. I dare not lay back, lest the yellow muck of phlegm and mucus my body is suffocating me in, in its feeble attempt to wash these toxins from my ailing cells, drowns me instead.
Shaking my fist at the irony of man in his attempt to salvage life, to make it last longer, to be healthier; has inadvertently created an illness that converts, changes, metamorphosis’ into something even man’s feeble drugs can not touch.
The body aches for release from this torment. I shall not give in, I shall not let COVID win. I sleep.
Gypsie’s Wonderful World of Words 