Poem about one of my very favourite things to daydream about…
*****
the Great Library
there’s a meme I love
you know you’re a book geek
when you still get upset thinking about
the Library of Alexandria
& many are the times i’ve considered
buying a t-shirt stating similar sentiments
there was another viral trend
first flagged a year or so ago
about how often men allegedly
thought about The Roman Empire
(several times a week apparently)
but while i definitely enjoy daydreaming
about both Ancient Rome & Athens
Alexandria remains my go-to contemplatory place
the Great Library of Alexandria
shrouded in mystery, from its founding
to its destruction a thousand years later
some say the massive, ancient library was
the single greatest accumulation
perhaps 400,000 papyrus scrolls
of human knowledge in history
up until that point
it burnt three times rather than
one single conflagration
i) Caesar accidentally set fire to part of it
during his tête-à-tête with Pompey
ii) several hundred years later a Christian
Patriarch turned the Temple of Serapis
into a church & repeated skirmishes
destroyed parts piecemeal iii) & finally
Caliph Omar asserted the contents
“either contradict the Koran, so they’re heresy,
or they agree, so are superfluous”
& thus the scrolls were used as tinder
in the city’s bathhouses — supposedly taking
six months for everything to burn away
it is this religious arrogance / ignorance
which most angers my bookdragon
for we’ll never know now what wisdom
we lost … what science was undone …
what stories forgotten … simply because
zealots were too insecure in their own words
to allow contradictory ones to exist
*****
Factoid 3 – biggest modern library
juxtaposition of red & blue
the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C.
is the world’s largest library
there are numerous interesting
facts one could share about
this iconic institution
— yet the thing I’m entertained by
is the current irony involved in
the juxtaposition of the words
Library — & — Congress
gareth roi poet boi 