La Bibliothèque Sèche

Lyrics

Good evening, my friends.
My silent company.
The light from the lamp catches the dust on your shoulders.

Another one came home with me today.
Tucked under my arm, a secret from the rain.
The spine is so straight, it has never been broken.
The pages smell of ink and forest and potential.
I told it, "Don't worry, you'll have good company here."
And I placed it on the summit of the pile by the chair.
Another stone in the cathedral.
Another promise I made to myself at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday.

This is my architecture of good intentions.
My Tsundoku.
This is the library of what I do not know.
Umberto Eco would have understood.
This is not a monument to failure.
It is a map of where I want to go.
La bibliothèque sèche.
My beautiful, thirsty library.

The biography of Satie is under a book about mycelial networks.
The slim volume of poetry from 1968 is a foundation stone for a history of salt.
I can read the geology of my year in these stacks.
The optimism of January, buried by the pragmatism of May.
The shelf in the hallway bows just a little. A quiet sigh.
And the tower on the nightstand...
It leans toward me while I sleep.
Whispering its titles.

This is my architecture of good intentions.
My Tsundoku.
This is the library of what I do not know.
Umberto Eco would have understood.
This is not a monument to failure.
It is a map of where I want to go.
La bibliothèque sèche.
My beautiful, thirsty library.

Some people would see a list of debts.
A catalog of broken promises.
But I see you.
And I know you are not accusations.
You are invitations.
Friends I haven't had the time to meet yet.
Tsunde-oku. Dokusho.
To pile up and to read. The verb is still alive in the waiting.

Someday, I will open you.
Someday, the rain will fall.
And I will drink.
My dry library.
Someday.