It begins with a question:
what world to inhabit?
The dark, cobbled streets of London?
A Maine seaside town?
India or China?
Cuba or Puerto Rico?
Perhaps New York’s sultry summer blocks?
It is not simply
a glance at the shelf
or a browse
through The New York Times Book Review.
To read is to throw open the doors
on one’s quiet life,
and stride purposefully
into the fully realized world of others.
I shall never look at a reader
curled in a chair
in the same way.
For that person may be lost
in the jungle,
hiding in a London fallout shelter,
or cycling the quiet backroads of Vietnam.
The mind may linger
on a now still battlefield,
or pause to remember a sparkling gala.
For reading is a propellent,
launching the soul
across time and space.
A Reading Life 
Your poem made me want to stop what I’m doing right now–to read. Brilliant!
“To read is to throw open the doors
on one’s quiet life,
and stride purposefully
into the fully realized world of others.”
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Wow, I hope you are sharing this with your students as a mentor text in both reading and writing! I admire your skillful stanzas! Especially the last stanza and the visual of the propellent. So powerful.
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This is an exquisite slice, an ode to reading! Love how your words transport through space and time.
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Love your words and now I’m off to read, to launch my “soul across time and space.”
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I love this poem. It’s going to hang in my new classroom as soon as I print it out tomorrow. I love the ending: “propellent, launching the soul across time and space.” So glad March brings us together HERE and brings us together in our school buidling. #vaccinestrong
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