The Book of Secrets. Part Two.

The first thing you see
is that the book is back to front
it has been started twice
if you open it the wrong way round,
Is that the pages at the back
or at the front
have been torn
Ripped out

Who by?

There is the curl of a letter Y
There is a faint "I"
on the roughly excised stumps

Why?

Murray burned Byron's memoirs
while hordeing his other souveniers

Byron's Napoleonic nick nacks
Survive

What did else he keep
What was his selection?
What grounds?

What else did he burn?

If it was his hand...
His censorship
Not hers,
it was Byron he protected
always
from her accurate slanders
of buggery and incest.

She would never have pulled her own pages down
and out, with her white hand
this pale, aged
cream paper

eight leaves jutting
but a fifth, perhaps
of the whole book removed

Unless

Unless she started the book the right way up
and ripped out what she's written
as too exposed, too raw?

Or unless it was just an old book
a poor thing

and she was saving money

This thing was probably expensive then
though not nearly as expensive as it is now...

So for reasons of parsimony or censorship
someone is being protected here
by someone.

And she started the book again
backwards
like a Hebrew.

Never got that far...

Perhaps another third of the pages are blank
some ruled, boxed
empty
waiting for wisdom
and truth
and love

for ever

Turn it upside down