What do you do

when every story:

you might have heard

you might have known

you might have shared

is no longer here?

 

The pages thin and frail

give way and loose themselves

from the binding, a golden

thread to the binding remains.

The glue no longer holds.

 

This is a product of the reading,

a product of the bending

a product of dog-earring

a product of underlining.

All that is here is the cover.

 

Suppose you were asked

to take part of these stories–

to take the work to the water–

to lay the lines to the shallows

to watch as letters leaves

to move to the depths

you cannot reach by foot.

 

And supposed you were asked

to take the other part to the waiting

hole where the stories will be kept

for a time undetermined.

It may be the first time you understand

the relationship between

the scripted man

and the manuscript.

 

Would you hold fast to the shelves now?

The way all fragile things are kept?

 

Would you worry about levels now?

When a single page could lift a heart to new heights?

 

Would you finally read-aloud and listen to read-alouds?

Do we really believe that “sustained” and “reading” should always be the bookends for “silent?”

 

Would you worry about numbers?

When every known statistic is terminal by definition?

 

Would you celebrate that the first steps

into fresh water are always curious. . .and squishy?

 

Would you see these books now as necessary

to a journey that spends more time afloat

than ashore?

 

Would you make sure that the deep waters

to which the stories might be committed

were within the hands of those going to sea?

 

Good stories are never laid to rest,

not so long as the tongue longs to sing

not so long as the eye is wanting to see

not so long as the ear is willing to hear

not so long as the heart is willing to bear

and not so long as hands are ready to share.

 

Every part of our being is drawn to story

as we are drawn somehow to the water

as tide and time work in tandem

so the tome finds its home on the wave

and in the calm.

 

Read the sparkle of a small body of water

and experience a lifetime of a droplet

nature’s perfect couplet–shine. . .and dim. . .

the surface of a story drawn from the deep

to shimmer for one single moment.