I must read!**
For the words that drift across my consciousness
--lights that pierce dull eyes--
are not of my own creation;
they are spoken by the celestial voices of time,
and time immemorial.

I receive these graces bountifully,
the more and more I ravenously consume
pages upon pages of genius:

The jongleurs who entertained in the king's courts
and danced and sang in His Majesty's presence,
The alchemists who toyed with heretic incantations
and cauldrons full of curses in their gloomy dens,
The madmen and women who succumbed to madness
and therefore in turn were blessed by madness,
The monks who sat hunched over fading scrolls
and interpreted scripture in the ancient libraries,
The scribes who sharpened their tools
and carried their stone tablets like a cross.

I must write, yes,
but first I must read.