Book Boat

To a boat

Made out of books -

Someone told me once -

That books are like ships

Out to sea -

Waiting for someone to hop on -

To invite themselves to understand -

Only all too often these

Boats are set ablaze

By a profound ignorance -

We still exist

Of course, conspiring

Against the tide in collections

Of our own -

Book sales

Drives, fairs -

Libraries

To each book

We haven’t read -

And maybe the few

We’ll write

On that vast ocean -

To each person

Still paddling the boat

In a sea of books.