The Library

Echoing footsteps on hardwood floors,
Hard rubber steps stamping into memory
The footprints of my youthful happiness.

Summers spent under azure, cotton clouds, careless,
Hair heated with the sun's radiant rays,
Walking into the library, my second home.

The pungent scent of dusty books,
Ink of ideas ripe for discovery,
The imagination of countless souls to explore.

I moved on to the contented drudgery
That only maturity could bring,
But I missed the freedom of the bookshelves.

Now it was gone, demolished
Under the perfect skies of yore,
The misty detritus of masonry, gritting my eyes.

Tears form as I muse upon
The comfortable orange, warm recollection of a place,
Crunching under tread of beeping machinery.

Forever in my memory, also to fail in time,
Just as all the palaces of my past.

My fingers ran over the cloth-like fabric texture
Of a book, one last time.
And then I walked away.