Lost Card

Ancestral voices led me on a chase,
From comfy repose to a cold, lightless place,
On a moor so ancient that none could find ,
This abyss that sequestered in my mind.

Though certain the old ones would want me found,
Would make sure that saviors abounded around;
I felt abandoned, forgotten, and lost,
Perhaps a rescue had too high a cost.

I stumbled along on a gravel path,
Through a garden's neglected aftermath,
To a wrought iron gate, with a latch gone slack,
And a glass veranda dusty and black.

The gate squeaked just once, and not very much.
The place came alive at my slightest touch:
Dust sloughed away and the glass gleamed so bright,
I needed a moment to clear my sight.

A building, so beautiful and immense,
It overwhelmed me, and it made no sense.
It stretched right and left, far as I could see,
On the lintel it read "Grand Library."

I knew right away I'd been here before;
I entered through a revolving glass door.
A crystal ceiling, mahogany walls,
And travertine floors gleamed in thousand halls!

Elated, I ran to indulge myself.
I grabbed a book from a nearby shelf.
The cover said "Dune," a favorite book,
I opened the cover and took a look...

Nearly every word had gone away!
Some pages were white, and others were grey:
All books, scripts, or poems that I could see
Were gone, were just empty pages to me.

I wander the halls sometimes in my dreams.
I wonder if all is lost as it seems.
I visit my white room when pain is hard,
And pray I find my lost library card.

Mick McKellar
April 2021

The first time I revisited my grand library after the chemotherapies was a scary dream and a sad reckoning with human frailty.

Mick