The Bookshelf

The shelf towers above me;

Thousands of pages in front of my eyes:

A treasure trove of a different kind, no doubt.

The books are sorted alphabetically.

(By author’s last name.)

My fingers traverse those spines the way they have so often.

The ones on the lower shelves are nibbled on.

Saphira is the culprit, or at least I think.

Some people can stand in a wine cellar, and each wine is different to them.

A different texture, a different smell, a different taste, a different year that it was made.

Books are my wines, and the bookshelf is my personal cellar.

Reading isn’t just about seeing, at least not to me.

Each book has a voice: Wuthering Heights is a melodical soprano;

Eragon sings in deep and brassy tones.

Each book has a feel, rough and bumpy or smooth and silky.

Each book has a smell and a taste, a certain flavor that defines it.

(Science fiction is sharp and acerbic, whereas fantasy is sweet and sugary.

And Harry Potter? Yeah, that book smells the best of all.)

So I linger in front of the shelf,

Pulling out one book or the other and tasting it like a good wine;

And I give it a final, delicate sniff and a swirl,

Before indulging myself in those perfectly mellowed pages.