It is similar to the way the deaf interpret music as vibration,
but even harder to perceive if you are not feeling for it,
that unheard heartbeat of time, an almost silent celebration of narrative sensation.
Run your listening hand across the wallpaper hung in this room
a hundred years ago by some skilled craftsman proud
of his initial step in smoothing over the silent walls beneath,
the colorful honor of serving as first speaker of record, after whom
every person who has passed through this fanciful room
has added to, furthering the construction of the legend,
their words absorbed, the ever-compounding tales combining on this initial page.
Each is an author contributing to a cumulative history culminating now
in this fade and peel, the chronicle having grown so heavy with anecdotal conglomeration,
it will bring the record down, subject of gravity and slow time,
giving way to new words that will beat the heart of history
in this onward, forward turning of the quiet recorder’s page.
Lanning Lee 