On Opening

There is nothing like the first taste of a new book.

you run your fingers over the cover

your thumb catches the edge or the corner

and you open it

a new world

I don't know the story, the characters--who they are or who they will become, where they will go or what they will do. I learn their names, their faces, their habits. I learn their hopes, their disappointments, their secrets. They teach me, and I respond to them.

with a thousand unspoken thoughts

with that slight change in my voice

almost unnoticeable

a slightly different pronunciation perhaps

an added depth

or hollowness

with the words I will write

my words?

or no one's

or everyone's

with the way I look into the faces of strangers

with the way I choose

Pages turn like days, like minutes, like years. A thumb on one page, a forefinger ready to turn the next. The world is new--is changed--is revealed with every turn.

Expectation, anticipation, hope, disappointment, secrets wait within a closed book. Beginning, end, continuation--all moments as one between the covers. A voice, and utterance, a story--waiting to tell, waiting to be heard.