The Colophon

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Past Khat-i-gur / in Eilonwe
Lay Atalon / that lustrous pearl
Metropolis / of ancient lore
That came to dust / in bygone yore
Ah Atalon!/ With minarets
And onion domes / of polished steel!
Now stay, my Lords / and hear the tell
Of how she lived / and how she fell


The wonders of / Fair Atalon!
Her wing’ed ships / plied far-flung seas
Her markets burst / and overflowed
With wares procured / from ev’ry road
Her armies marched / with measured tread
Across the earth / to reach the will
Of Atalon / o’er mere and land
To manage men / with iron hand

But numbering / the countless charms
And wonderments / of Atalon
Then first must come / at head of file
The best of all: / the Bibliopyle
A palace, yes / but not for kings
Nor demagogues / but books and lore
And scrolls and scraps / and snips of ken
All gathered there / by learn’ed men

In dusty aisles / and mazy rooms
The Erudants / made endless toil
To catalog / to sift and comb
Through each gazette / and ev’ry tome
To seek that day / when all that’s known
By any soul / in any place
Could there be read / by eager eyes
To benefit / the sage and wise

The Erudants / would ever seek
From travelers / or pilgrims poor
Some scrap of news / or bit of lore
They hadn’t seen / or heard before
New books they prized / as most would gold
A letter, worth / its jeweled weight
And in their quest / to fact-collect
No poem or prose / would they reject

There lived there once / in Atalon
A man who sought / to join the ranks
Of Erudants, / that prideful crew
Of sorters of / all things Men knew
A puissant soul / he was, this man
A lettered sage / and wizard too
But of his name / I’ll tell you naught
For that, I fear / has time forgot

This man he came / on bended knee
And begged to join / the learn’ed corps
Professing then / his sense and guile
Could well advance / the Bibliopyle
Hearing these pleas, / the Erudants
Took heed, and yet / they took offense
And spurned the man / believing then
No stranger could / increase their ken

They bade him leave / with cruel words
And hurl’ed stones / and showered blows
And claim’ed then / this luckless man
Was nothing but / a charlatan
Away he crept / and in his rooms
He nursed his wounds / and salved his pride
Malevolence / replaced regret
He swore he’d have / his vengeance yet

He found some book / upon his shelves
Of decent age / and harmless name
This book, he felt / would be a source
Of in’trest to / his tormentors
Within this book / on frontispiece
He worked a rune / with sepia ink
A sigil with / vile magic drawn
And curses pent: / a Colophon

This Colophon / was no mere mark
For in its black / and serpent scrawls
Was held a will / and sentience
To work ill deeds / with murky ends
This rune, you see / was self-aware
With means to sense/ and mischief-make
Shot all throughout / with hunger for
The Erudants’/ close-guarded lore

His handiwork / now made complete
The wrong’ed man / stole through the streets
Of Atalon / one ev’ning late
To wreak his fell / and vengeful fate
He left the book / with Colophon
Upon the stoop / of Bibliopyle
Then crept away / concealed by dark
To pray the prey / would take his mark

Upon the morn / the Erudants
Emerging from / their leaf-stacked halls
Beheld the book / upon their stair
And well remarked / their fortune fair
This strange old tome / was new to them
All curious / they brought it in
But in their haste / missed what was on
The frontispiece: / the Colophon

The book was placed / within the stacks
Along with new / and less-read works
And there they left / it for a while
To tend the needs / of Bibliopyle
There, in the dark, / the vile rune stirred
And caused the tome / to open wide
Its spider scrawls / did jounce and jerk
And come uncoiled / to wreak its work

Like tentacles / of inky squid
The Colophon / did feel and grope
With eyeless sight / across the place
To trace the next / tome’s dusty face
With cautious care / its fingers cracked
The codex hide / and laid it bare
And then, the pages / duly freed
The Colophon / began to feed

Old ink from page / did disappear
As words were drawn / into the rune
And with them, lore / for Colophon
Ate thoughts behind / that which was drawn
So as the book / lost passages
Detailing ships / that roved the waves,
So did the folk / of Eilonwe
Lose ken of craft / and ships and sea

This last book spent / its pages blank,
The Colophon / cast it aside
And gorged with speed / on artful tomes
And folios fair / and scrolls of poems
No written thing / would it ignore
As it did gorge / and feast on words
And as it ate / men’s knowledge waned
As Atalon’s / great writings drained

Caught off their guard, / the Erudants
Did realize / that ought was wrong
For they could sense / their ebbing store
Of jealously / collected lore
They then made haste / through stacks and shelves
Suspecting that / the book to blame
Was one of late / they had ac’quired,
Thither they rushed / with brands a-fired

But though they ran / with panicked speed
More quickly did / the Colophon
All wisdom gnaw / all brilliance burst
And suck dry books / to slake its thirst
With myr’iad arms / in each book room
No one idea / remained untouched
The runners had / to wonder why
They ran so hard, / and whither fly

Then Atalon, / that gleaming place
Did die, its folk / must starve and roam
For lost was art / and craft and thought
And of their works / there left was naught
The ships were beached / the armies lost
The Bibiopyle / a vacant shell
The minarets / and domes all must
By pass of time / succumb to rust

Until, at last / Fair Atalon
Became a lorn / and lonely tomb
Of tumbled stones / and grey defile
All hemming in / the Bibliopyle
That edifice, / if still it stands
Holds nothing but / the crumbling dust
Of blank-page books / and empty shelves
Of bygone words / that ate themselves

‘Ware ye, my Lords / for all that’s known
May someday meet / the Colophon.