Saturday, March 25, 2017
This Water Stained Book
This Water Stained Book
This water stained book by Rilke,
with its crinkled yellow bookmarks,
its rippled pages
once reduced in price
for its blemished
condition
rare find
for a poor student
such as I was then
I do not know where
you came from,
bearing such treasures,
such epiphanies
on every page
you were
indeed a bargain,
each line a jewel, hidden,
glowing
with its inner light
you spoke vast
secrets then,
intelligible
only to the very young,
who listened
with every pore
and corpuscle,
wondering if in heaven
you would still be there
when they arrived
at some distant
and unmarked juncture,
waiting breathless to see
what next unfolded
with each arriving syllable.
Dorothy Walters
March 23, 2017
