Pemba's Other Books

Lyrics

The air in the library changed that morning.
Before the sun.
It smelled of broken seals.
Of questions asked.

I left the key in the loose board under the third shelf.
The brass one, cold to the touch.
Tarnished from a hundred years of not being used.
Or a hundred years of being used for this one purpose.
They found it in 2017.
I heard the floorboard groan.
I heard the small, sharp click of the old iron lock.
A sound I had been waiting for.
Or a sound I had been dreading.
It is the same thing.

And they came to me with eyes like new lamps.
Expecting a story. Expecting a map.
But some books have no author.
Some shelves have no name.
I gave them nothing.
Not a word. Not a look of shame.
Just wood. Just paper. Just the settling dust.
The rest is a question of trust.

They stood in the doorway, the key held between them.
A little brass secret.
Their breath was still fog in the cold morning air.
They wanted to know if the stories were true.
If the diagrams were real.
If the words meant what they thought they meant.
I poured the tea.
I looked out the window at the gray sea.
The answer was not in my keeping.

And they came to me with eyes like new lamps.
Expecting a story. Expecting a map.
But some books have no author.
Some shelves have no name.
I gave them nothing.
Not a word. Not a look of shame.
Just wood. Just paper. Just the settling dust.
The rest is a question of trust.

The monk who taught me had a box he never opened.
He said it held the sound of a forgotten language.
He died, and I burned it without looking inside.
Some knowledge is a burden.
Some ignorance, a gift.
And sometimes, the finding of the key is the whole lesson.
Not the opening of the lock.

That night, I put the key back on the table.
In the open.
The shelf is still there.
The books are still there.
The lock waits.
The dust begins to gather again.