Library Rat


Cycle I: The Haunters of the Stacks
The sun goes down on concrete and on glass,
And streetlights hum a solitary tune,
But in the library, the last ones pass,
And leave the Rats beneath the silent moon.
They slip between the aisles of Dewey's lore,
A quiet hunger gnawing at their soul,
And find within the pages, more and more,
A shattered part that makes their spirit whole.
They read by feel, by memory, by scent,
The ink and paper, old and brown with time,
And find a refuge, where their days are spent
In perfect rhythm, an imagined rhyme.
They are not ghosts, nor shadows, thin and wan,
But living readers, waiting for the dawn.
Cycle II: The Private Gate
The private library, a whispered name,
A gilded key within a trusted hand,
A silent promise, burning like a flame,
To step inside that consecrated land.
The Rats will climb the fence, and pick the lock,
Not for the silver, jewels, or worldly gain,
But for a volume, sheltered from the clock,
A single thought to soothe their private pain.
They seek the wisdom of the long-lost sage,
The poetry that history forgot,
To turn a hidden, unrecorded page,
And find the truth that no one ever sought.
For in those hallowed halls, the air is thick
With all the books the public doesn't pick.
Cycle III: The Feast of Words
They do not starve, though they have little bread,
For every letter is a grain of grace.
They feast upon the words of long since dead,
And drink the truth from an imagined place.
A single sentence is a meal for two,
A paragraph, a supper, rich and deep,
A chapter is a feast for me and you,
And every word's a promise they will keep.
They memorize the lines and bind them fast,
Against the cold and hollow of the street,
And dream of worlds that they cannot outlast,
Where every ending is a taste of sweet.
They are the children of the printed page,
A testament to every passing age.
Cycle IV: The New Day's Promise
The morning comes, a cruel and gentle light,
And drives the Rats back to their shadowed lair.
They leave the books, a silent, humble flight,
And take the knowledge with them in the air.
They walk the streets, a little bit more whole,
With stories of the worlds they've just explored,
And carry fragments for the weary soul,
A quiet strength that cannot be ignored.
For every page they read, a seed is sown,
A future built from what they came to learn,
A truth that they have made their very own,
A fire that in their hungry hearts will burn.
They are the Rats, who feast, and learn, and grow,
And pass the sacred knowledge that they know.

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