waterslides & libraries

   it isn't that i am not present

   i see the green of the tree out my window in the wind

   notice a small white butterfly like a falling leaf (alighting)

   sense the hot sun that reminds me that it is apparently summer

   but there is an inner path 

   it is white and wide like a concrete waterslide

   and i glide on a gentle breeze

   i live along that way (it seems)

   (it is) so expansive and were there to be water flowing

   rather than wind...

   it would send me cascading in seconds to your doorway

   and then water and laughter and spluttering and arrival

   but instead it is wind on this water slide and so i travel slow

   there are days and days of feelings and questions and conversations

   with people and sometimes they are vivid and i am surprised that i 

    can see them the way i see you

   endlessly fascinated - knowing they carry a whole life - of which i 

   know really nothing at all

   but if people are books and the world a library

   i am the kind of person who has only a few 

   oh i love to look at all their names down the sides and glide

  my fingers along their spines 

  to take it all in, to walk swiftly through the aisles 

 to feel i am transported by all the ancient - all the new - all the manga and crochet books

 all the history of ships and lands others knew

 and sometimes i even sit

but when i really read a book - it becomes a companion for life

i know the picture on the cover and have read the opening line at least thrice

and i am usually only a chapter or two in

i like when the book is unfinished and always there to begin

so in my lifetime maybe i will only really hold a few in my hands

carry a few to the beach in baskets that are never read

only a shelf of books will really stay with me 

only five or so will ever transform me