Poem: "Re: Reading"

Re: Reading

A poet, I don’t remember who, once said, I don’t read widely,
I read over and over four or five books.
If I heed his advice, what will my reading be?
What raises a house from multiple looks?

I read The Book of Changes at five
when we moved from a communal flat.
I read the bamboo scroll again to survive
moving to here and there, with this or that.

The Book of Nature I have neglected,
preferring The Book of Art.
The variety of life, strong, strange and selected,
I will commit to the staring heart.

There is a well-thumbed paperback
I carry around with almost a religious sense of duty,
or it carries me like a rack,
The Book of Love and other Cruelties.

One more! The dwelling that hosts them all—
Poetry,
in intimate rooms and splendid halls,
I re-discover re-discovery.

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