You all know that I love to read, and I know that many of you love to read as well (right, Andrea?). I'm also pleased to have two friends who are published writers, and whose company I hope one day to join. Until then, I'll just live vicariously through the joy that my children and grandchildren experience as they pick up someone else's book, turn the pages, and escape for a while into a different - and, much of the time, better - world.
For My Son, Reading Harry Potter
by Michael Blumenthal
How lovely, to be lost
as you are now
in someone else's thoughts
an imagined world
of witchcraft, wizardry and clans
that takes you in so utterly
all the ceaseless background noise
of life's insistent pull and drag soon fades
and you are left, a young boy
captured in attention's undivided daze,
as I was once
when books defined a world
no trouble could yet penetrate
or others spoil, or regret stain,
when, between covers, under covers,
all is safe and sure
and each Odysseus makes it home again
and every transformation is to bird or bush
or to a star atwinkle in some firmament of light,
or to a club that lets you, and all others, in.
Oh, how I wish for you
that life may let you turn and turn
these pages, in whose spell
time is frozen, as is pain and fright and loss
before you're destined to be lost again
in that disordered and distressing book
your life will write for you and cannot change.
Have a good day, and enjoy the rest of your weekend ... preferably in a comfortable chair, in front of a fire, with a cup of hot coffee/tea/chocolate/cider and a good book. It's almost as good as life gets.
Bilbo
So you have your next career picked out already?
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