Stocking Shelves
Upon this humble and blood stained shelf
With bookends of birth and death
There is, at this moment, only settled dust in need of disturbance
Expel it with your dogma and scriptures
The benevolent beauty of the Beatitudes
Quran
The 4 Noble Truths
Place on it the creative yields of great minds
The likes of Ellison and Hemingway
Keats and Hughes
Bind and neatly set these works atop the carpenter’s finish
Write your own story and place it there as well
Journals to feed your nostalgia in moments when the presence of the present isn’t bearable
And the lens of the looking glass is too foggy to view the future
Cover the wood of your shelf with all the weight it can bear
Fill it until those bookends burst and splinter into uncountable shards of wisdom
And your learned legacy spills over into the lives of others
The frame is just sturdy enough
To hold a lifetime
With bookends of birth and death
There is, at this moment, only settled dust in need of disturbance
Expel it with your dogma and scriptures
The benevolent beauty of the Beatitudes
Quran
The 4 Noble Truths
Place on it the creative yields of great minds
The likes of Ellison and Hemingway
Keats and Hughes
Bind and neatly set these works atop the carpenter’s finish
Write your own story and place it there as well
Journals to feed your nostalgia in moments when the presence of the present isn’t bearable
And the lens of the looking glass is too foggy to view the future
Cover the wood of your shelf with all the weight it can bear
Fill it until those bookends burst and splinter into uncountable shards of wisdom
And your learned legacy spills over into the lives of others
The frame is just sturdy enough
To hold a lifetime