An Agonizing Cry

Stealing away from the noise and glare I paced the aisles of an ancient library Being worn and tired, indisposed to read I sat in a corner, lost in half reverie Around me were books stacked end on end In safely locked glass and wooden shelves And sectioned into different genres Fiction, non- fiction, verse et al, in thinly layered leaves I felt lost in this vast continent of erudite friends Poet, scholar, philosopher and sage, each sat quiet But those silent souls seemed to crave for human touch Waiting to serve anytime learning's lovesome diet Closely sheltered from the tumult of the world The place, though serene had an eerie air And books like so many beauties in a harem Were kept away in seclusion just to admire The lifeless air and the long deserted look Mildly disturbed my inner calm Couldn't digest man's total disregard of books Which for long, to many a lonely soul, served as balm Sitting amid those gallant souls I thought over the relentless efforts of sage like men Who in the stillness of the night, in their cloistured cells Plunged into research and meditative reflection What knowledge is garnered in these tomes What all charms, encased in these pages To what magic lands they can carry us Sharing with us the accumulated wisdom of ages With the profusion of electronic gadgets And information, readily available by a finger hit Books no more are given a venerable treat And fated to be stashed away in corners unlit Heavy with the time tested wisdom of the wise They sit huddled together in damp corners Longing to get a little human warmth But sadly neglected like rusted burners After an hour's enervating reprieve While I was leaving that dumb world In my ears, fell a faint sound Of the agonizing cry of the Printed Word!