The Dust Between the Spines

Between a world of silk and one of salt,
the volumes breathe, aligned in row.
The dust, an almost astral mantle,
seals their silent decay below.
They do not speak with pages’ voice,
nor whisper plots already known;
but an echo of stories, of images,
shakes from cover to cover shown.

Sensing the weight of dreams and the border
that brushes every printed line,
the waiting for hands that, divine,
will leaf through them with promise fine.
And in that immobile eternal moment,
among bindings and writings past,
they keep the cold and the winter
of truths that were never amassed.

An air of home, a scent of tea,
the sunbeam brushing a margin’s edge,
every distant rustle, a mystery
that pages absorb, image after ledge,
after image, without making sound,
silent witnesses, guardians
of a time that no longer holds its heart,
but lives between their spines, in the knots.