6/26/12-First Drafts

Some books make you feel lovely.

And small.

As if you understand everything and nothing all at the same time.

It is with those books that we change.

That a little bit of us is altered.

All because a verb or

a particular adjective combination

hit us just so in between two particular vertebral plates.

Because you don’t get the feeling that the author put them there.

You get the feeling that they are, in and of themselves, alive.

And in that moment,

that indelible moment, that missable moment,

your soul can meet them and survive. 

And for all the other moments missed,

you stare up into the pages of old books lined up on a shelf.

Because they remind you that,

while there aren’t ever going to be just the right phonemes for life,

there will and always have been those who are willing to risk the chase