I opened the well-worn pages -  
The scent of a thousand years
Crinkling in the folds
That my nervous fingers
Turned,
Chapter after
Chapter –
It read like a river,
Streaming from the consciousness
Of hearts that knew
what it meant to smile –
but I was naïve,
a watcher from a window -
I read and envisioned
but did not understand
what others had so long away discovered
so frighteningly easily