Some books are diversions,
OK-for-now-just-to-get-to-sleep books
you can read it and
make your grocery list at the same time
looking over its shoulder for
something more interesting,
laughing politely at its jokes, while
Some books you are obliged to read
how can you be a "book person"
if you have not had Austen to tea? or Dickens?
wrestled with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy? or
contemplated Steinbeck, for that matter?
– the "list" books
and they are wonderful, don't get me wrong, but
some books ...
some books swallow you whole
they squeeze and churn and digest you
they break you down and rearrange your molecules
and at the end they
spew you out cleansed and dazed and breathless
gasping at reality for a second
unrecognized, and
some books ...
some books pulled from burning
piles and held close
sear the heart
smoking words that cannot be hidden
tear the sight and
tracking the scorched feet of the seekers
I am pulled alike from the burning pile
(This poem was inspired by Shay's Word Garden Word List celebrating Mary Oliver.)
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