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.