Dog-eared

Dog-eared pages of poetry

I flip

I

Discover and rediscover

I mark and highlight treasures

I’ve found

Within these pages bound

By red cover and string

Poets of the past

Pouring their lives out

For others to read

And understand them

To

Walk with them with words of their world

To see what they saw

So long ago and realize

Not much has changed

War is still war

Greed is still greed

No value in any of it to the poet

I wonder who will flip through

These same pages years from now?

When I’m no longer here to turn them

Who will read these words that have

Warmed my heart and awakened my mind?

With

The opening flower of imagination

Who will discover the beauty

Of being lost in a land of words?

Will my child one day?

Will a dear friend?

A family member?

Or

Will it end up in a yard sale

Marked at 50 cents?

Or will it go to the landfill?

Picked up by a garbage man

Read on his lunch break

Then tossed in his locker

With his other found reads

Time

Playboy

Rolling Stone