National Poetry Month 2009 4.2 A Book

In response to Bud’s prompt 1…

A Book

A book
Full of words
Line by line
The story revealed

A book
Pages numbered
Turn by turn
The story told

A book
Authored
Letter by letter
The story crafted

The page
Contains its lines

The lines
Contain their words

The words
Meaningless
Without their links
Before and aft

Each word hangs on the next
As each breath mists into another
Each grows
As the days grow to weeks
And the weeks to months
And the months to years
And the years
A lifetime

The letter second
The word minute
The sentence day
The page month
The chapter year
The book lifetime

Authored artfully
Made meticulously
Crafted carefully
Composed consciously

As randomness contradicts purpose
So does meaninglessness life

The chapter complete
In its number
Fails the book
In its sole telling

The sentence powerful
In its wholeness
Fails the story
In its only completeness

The word essential
In its purpose
Fails the sentence
In its isolation

The letter necessary
In its formation
Fails the word
In its scrutiny

The letter makes the word
The word makes the sentence
The sentence the page
The page the chapter
The chapter the story

To disentangle a sentence from a book
May reveal a morsel
The sentence hangs in the air
But a brief moment
Revealing itself
Hinting at its purpose
In the grand design

But it falls
Lifeless as a petal plucked
Untethered
Laughable

Its purpose lost in the extrication and isolation
Pointless parsing
The whole lost
On one
Why?