The Boy and the Book
the dad admonishes
‘do not eat the book’
the little boy
old enough to talk
but clearly pre-school
is gnawing on the picture book
I wonder
is the paper digestible
is the ink toxic
what about the plastic
on the shiny cover
is it picture book of animals
does the boy expect
to find out what
a lion tastes like
can what nourishes his mind
also feed his body
will this taste haunt him
as he searches for it
in books cookies flesh
that bring back that memory
or will he realize
books are for reading
not for eating
that filling his head
will leave his stomach empty
that no matter
how many books he reads
his mind will never be satisfied
that it’s time to close books
and start to feed the world
The line of dialogue in this piece is verbatim. I was a coffee shop waiting for a friend to arrive. A dad dad said this to his child. No anger but forceful enough to the boy to stop for a few minutes. When Dad went to get their order the gnawing started again. The set up is real & I started writing this piece while waiting.
It quickly become a list poem as wonder what I wonder about paper, poison & the like. The book belongs to the cafe as they frequently have families drop by so I also wondered about how sanitary it was but I’m not in charge & am very cautious about infringing on people’s privacy. Watching brought back a memory of myself at about the same age wondering why a picture of a piece of cake didn’t taste like a piece of cake. My mother thought that was hilarious.
Then I wander off into speculation – turning the moment into a meditation on childhood’s imprinted memory. Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past starts with a smell from his childhood that triggers the endless book. I have a few smells like that, though I don’t have specific moments conjured by them – the smell of baby powder is one, the smell of Evening In Paris is another.
The piece becomes a bit more philosophical about aging – books aren’t for eating though ironically we are encouraged to feed our minds with information 🙂 The hunger for learning may never leave us but, hopefully, one realizes that the search for information can turn into an avoidance of action. There comes a time when one has to leave the expansive yet closed world of books & take part in the world.
The piece pretty much wrote itself once I got started. It didn’t need much editing either. I have performed it a few times & it reads well. I love the innocence of it – no angst to grind, no politic or sexuality – just a sweet moment.
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