The Sunday Poem: Flicker
It’s hard to understand, these days, how prized writing once was. Everywhere we turn there is verbal diarrhea, an endless stream of twittering: there’s blog diaries and fan fiction and political ideologues, there’s spin and truthiness and position papers, there’s stories that perhaps don’t deserve to be told. We live in a world that is abundant in writing, abundant in books, with little sense of how once each carefully formed letter was a bulwark against the collapse of civilization.
For those of us who are readers, it can be hard to even comprehend. Once upon a time, people went blind for the sake of reading. They copied huge tomes by hand. They knew themselves to be special, people who had access to the magic of accumulated knowledge, an access most did not have. In some times, the material in the books they tended was literally a brick in a wall against barbarism; today we pulp excess books and strain the ink out to make room for yet more words, words, words words.
Hence this poem.
Flicker
People worked hard for their reading once, and perhaps valued it the more:
The wind battering their pages as they sought light away from musty houses,
The flick flick flicker of the candle oscillating letters in the night.
People worked hard for their writing once, the flick flick flicker of their pens
Scratching inkspot nibs and spatters, forming letters finely crafted almost accidental,
Their minds battering their pages as they sought light away from musty houses.
People valued this knowledge once, the knowledge of not being in the cult of ignorance,
The ignorance of knowledge of working hard for their books, the knowledge
Of ignorance flick flick flickering away the lights of musty houses
In favor of the howl of the wind, and the winding of the sheets of time battering
Down the oscillation of human hearts and minds. These were such small battles:
The flicking of eyes across candle-lit pages, the pages themselves, against the night.
Preserved; saved; these flickers, musty now themselves, bound and spined and sold
By bucketfuls and carts in bookstores proud to carry old soldiers termed as “used.”
I worked hard for my reading once, and wrote, and now all is mere commerce and gratuity.
6 Responses to “The Sunday Poem: Flicker”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
https://www.raphkoster.com/2007/04/15/the-sunday-poem-flicker/
At one time, books weren’t written by just anyone. Few had access to the materials and know-how to actually make a book.
Those who did tended to be people who spent their lives around knowledge and learning. In earliest times (of writting) only kings and the like made books, usually had them made, for the purpose of knowledge preservation.
It’s little wonder then, that some people risked their very lives to preserve books. Or that so often great libraries were formed in the great centers of commerce and enlightenment in the world.
I think people who love books must be people who are aware of the history of books (and writting), at least to some small extent. The idea of a “musty old tome” is more than the visual image. It’s the mystery of what lies within. Oh, what a mystery it can be. Just look at “The Da Vinci Code” as a classic example of the mysteries held in the writtings of the past. And there’s so much more. Fascinating stuff, when an inscription carved on a rock in an ancient slave mine, “El save me”, can lead one in a twisting mystery along a path that tangents to almost all ancient history. God, I feel so inadequate right now thinking about it all. But who was this ancient man, slave, miner, who could actually write? And what was the story of his people. Where did it come from, where did it go?
Can I get any more off topic, hehe.
Very nice Raph.
[…] granted today. Raph Koster wrote an excellent poem on the subject, and I’d suggest you read it: Raph’s Website � The Sunday Poem: Flicker __________________ "I read, I interpret, I think, I criticize, I oppose, I listen, I write, […]
Very nice and ironic blog entry. Love it!
[…] The Sunday Poem: Flicker […]