It takes the setting aside of things,
All that distracts and pulls us away from ourselves,
To sit idle with a book and get lost in the narrative.
Not that getting lost is a needful thing
Or a requirement to something else, but more so that reading
A book to the accompaniment of rain or snow or any weather that pushes us inside
Or under the canopy of a tree with the company of tea warm or iced,
Is to sit with time and let it be freed into another story.
Other as in not this one you are living, as wonderful as it might be,
But other just the same.
When you tip eyes above page, folding a corner down to mark where you did so,
Something in you has changed.
Perhaps you’ll quote a character, or discourse on the theme
Later in the company of those who might be entertained or also altered by the sharing
Of what you read.
To read is not to say we learn but more so understand
In a way that shapes our abilities notably.
We seek out that which illumines something we recognize in ourselves
That we choose to better know.
For some of us, it is a deep longing to enlighten, for others pure fantasy,
To be taken elsewhere, to disappear.
What is a library then but a place to anonymously vaporize
Into pages upon pages of words that take flight
Like cranes folded into crisp lines?
Just so, neither you nor this imagined creation of bird
Can be truly freed from whatever cage you’ve put yourself in
But the revelry of opening a book is much like opening a door,
Or maybe, even more so, holding the key.