To Read:

finish, begin

finish, begin

to finish and to begin

But it doesn't always happen that way

Does it? 

In fact, it rarely does

if ever

at all

Though we may not know it

If ever

At all.

It wasn't so very late, that night at home. Somehow it always seems later when away from the life that fills in moments of silence found alone. Alone at home, even though another moved through unoccupied rooms. So I began to think about closing books. 

What if reading the book is like the process of birth--like being born--and closing the book like taking the first breaths of air? Those few seconds from the moment you eye and grasp the book with a view to open it to the moment you do--reading, eyeing, mouthing, whispering, speaking that first word--is like the act of consummation. Deciding whether to open the book at all, to consider it even, is like the dance of choosing a partner. And depending on pre-meditation, how long you've waited for this book, could even be naive falling in love. 

Huh, well. Nary a page of this sort read over the break. And now, once again but for the final time, come the textbooks.