One Sin, One Book

If one morning in heavy rain

Beating the shingles back into tar

God would say to me:

 

“Give me one of your books every time

You sin.”

Would I lunge at the wager in hopes

Of a life wrapped in fine linen

With only an occasional stain?

Would I hide under the sheets

Of volumes, say

Behind a row of C. G. Jung

Or

Repress myself in a Freudian

Corner

Fearing Illusions yet to be?

 

The wager would make

Me weak; I know

That one day I would be stripped

Of all volumes and even forget

My now barren study

With perhaps a few scattered pages

Of an article on some random theme

That once seemed important,

Waiting for the lowered broom.

 

I would forget the letters

Of the alphabet one-by-one

So that reading itself and

The pleasures it afforded

I would forfeit in
monotonous memory lapse.

 

Then I would know

For the first time

What darkness is,

 

How it could fill the eyes with such

Illiterate power that the world

Might easily slip into the

 

Unfashioned light of thought

Without words.

 

How unlettered then the world

Would seem, how

Illiterate my protests.

 

---Dennis Patrick Slattery from Twisted Sky.