Baakleen National Library

I remember
the books filling up the shelves everywhere around us,
all the whispering, and the sign language,
the smell of paper and the sound of turning pages,
my favorite comic books and magazines,
envying the children working on their homework duties,
wishing I lived closer so I could come everyday,
my sister getting bored and annoying us,
I rememeber the old building and the white stone; the old staircase and the long brown tables. Every library I enter will only be a modified version of the Baakleen National Library, and every one of them, I know, will not be as good or as beautiful.
But starting today, everytime I enter a library, I will remember Baakleen, and a dream you once had, of opening a library on the first floor of your house in the North.
** The Baakleen National Library was inaugurated on the evening of Friday March 13,1987, after the National Center for Information and Studies has finished reconditioning the historical building which was called “Baakleen Serai”, an old Ottoman building, which gives the library its special status.