Wednesday, April 12, 2017

BOOKS


My set of classics (Traded in 1973)



It felt like I tasted candy when she read to us.  Her sweet voice dramatized emotions contained in words written long ago. The class, usually a little noisy, sat frozen in silence as images appeared on the screen of each student's imagination.  No one had ever read to me before.  I thought I didn't like reading,   My family didn't read or speak English. There were no books at home.   I thank this teacher for successfully instilling a hunger for more.  Books became inseparable from my life.

Once, many years ago, my husband and I traded an old, beaten up car for a set of classic books, beautifully bound.  We knew we made the better deal.  When my daughter rested peacefully in my belly, I read to her.  When my husband worked nights, I read all night long.  My favorite outing?  To go to a bookstore.  I cannot go to sleep unless I read before turning off the lights.

My home is cluttered with books.  I treasure them like real people with covers that mislead, attract attention giving clues about the person within.  They're expressing dreams, ways to help, share a story, or a poem, fiction or truth that exposes their true self...to me.


Books in every corner
People waiting to be opened
Hoping to be understood 








11 comments:

  1. Ha, I do think that there are a lot of people who owe their love of books to a teacher who read to them. As a teacher, I read to MY classes as well. I can only hope that I was one of those teachers for some of my students.

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  2. I love this, Myrna. I, too, read every night before going to sleep. I couldnt sleep otherwise. I mourn the many many books I had to donate to Literacy Alberni when I moved. I am down to one and a half bookcases, after having had seven bookcases full. But I am constantly bringing home books from the library so that works.

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  3. I can relate to books all over the house... I love the influence of the teacher as you learn to read in a foreign language... beautiful.

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  4. We are all truly book worms, can't even sleep without having read a sentence at night...how wonderfully you gave home to the set of classic, just fit for a book lover...a beautiful Haibun...

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  5. A beautiful sincere tribute to books

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  6. Books ARE real people. Education, escape, delight. And like you I read every night. With gratitude.

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  7. I LOVE this line: "People waiting to be opened." Aren't we all? :)

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  8. What a powerful story. As a child, books were all I had to expand a very small world, so I love how you started with that when your daughter was not yet born! Being read to is such a joy! This poem is very special! Thank you.

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