Our own to open and close.

When I was a boy the library was a portal to worlds I could never have imagined from my redoubt in the forested mountains. Librarians were Goddesses to my small mind, purveyors of food for thought, of Life itself. Heroes, fearless and grand.

To my amazed wonder I found there were libraries beyond my horizon, waiting only for my presence to open their doors and their covers for me to enter in. And the Earth itself its all its fearsome beauties lay open for anyone to find and claim a part of it if only it were known. Yes, even ones own steps and footprints along the banks of the Orinoco River. The high walls of Tripoli from which the unfortunate fall. Starborn cats above the Yellow Sea. Yes, the dead, the guides to the future, mirror-holders of the ages, Virgils and wanderers. Further, farther.

Let me sail, let me sail,
let the Orinoco flow,
Let me reach, let me beach
On the shores of Tripoli.
Let me sail, let me sail,
Let me crash upon your shore,
Let me reach, let me beach
Far beyond the Yellow Sea.

From the North to the South,
Ebudæ into Khartoum,
From the deep sea of Clouds
To the island of the moon,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never been,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never seen.

I await my visa to the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. I can't go there well unless I have a mind open to the new. Many don't seem to like the new, perfering the stale and the trite, an evening with the perky and the peppy, an evening with Enya rather than a time where one looks back to Indians dying by the riverside, drowned, snake-bitten, wasted from jungle fevers. No, none of that in the suburbs. It's a crazy life. Who could have dreamed all this to be possible? And what a shame to see those who can't see it is.

The sun is shining, the berries on the bushes are ripe, I have my bucket. I said "O, what is this life?"

She said:

I owe no librarian. Sail away.