To hold a book is a miracle. Every time I do this, I am astonished again. How I come into contact with them is a kind of romance. The minds of authors shine in my imagination like distant stars whose promises exert a rich and familiar perspectival gravity.

One develops a special respectful care for the object itself.

And for some few, reverence.

To turn a page is delight, and requires some attention. One does not swipe at pages dismissively, as with a machine. The operation is delicate, directed. Each person develops their unique signature methods, which they may apply under the many different circumstances one encounters between fingers and pages… all of which are physical.

And the pages are alive; they are woody, their scent subtly intoxicates, and the feeling of them gives to my hands their secrets almost before my eyes can plumb the shadowy spatter that there lies naked to the hungers of my dreaming mind.