Ode to a book

Ode to a book   

                                                                                                         Sungwon Kim

Your look so dear, that I cannot cease to stare at you.

Although you may be no more than some banal black inks stains on papers, you fill me with a fully-fed feeling of affection that I could never win over.

I don’t want to adorn you with all of those things that people say they are beautiful. The blatantly bland you as you are make me but love you with all my heart.        

Your scent more fragrant than any perfumes on this planet brings me the immediate joy. Yours is neither like that of blazing red roses nor that of the most attractive woman. I wonder what perfume have you used? If it were a man-made, never could you have been that good and peaceful. Yes, I am sure it is the smell of Mother Nature that visits me by the pleasant spring breeze from a nearby green. As I flip through the pages, the slow and subtle movement of that sweet air indulges me to fall deeper and deeper into your love.     

I want to touch you more and feel more of your roughness and robustness. Although you are apparently not alive, wood from which you borrowed your body still feels nice and natural. The permanent purity which you possess smoothly pats on my fatal poison and makes my spirits soar. Holding you lightly in my hands, you feel so affectionate and direct on the flesh of my fingers. Often times, I’d enjoy the comfort of falling asleep while I have you in my arms.

But indeed, what you reveal via your voiceless conveyance is which exceeds every other enticement I can gain from seeing, smelling, and touching. Unless a lucky he is gotten a good chance of hearing your words, could he ever realize the presence of a small universe in your meager being? Love, grief, ecstasy, loathing, evilness, madness, and more I can call out an endless list of which comprises that little cosmos you conceive. I am exalted with emotions while being immersed in the irresistible imagination of my own. Toward the end, blood in my veins begins to boil and rushes rapidly through all parts of my body. And when it bulks boundlessly beyond and beyond from the very bottom of my heart…Boom! Then I black out but the last page stares back at me, the end.