The Land of Plenty
binds
free thoughts
within
jackets,
covers,
spines.

Wildest ideas
suddenly
serene
beside
meditative mantras.

Philosophies, essays,
debates, diatribes, discussions
turn silent as the clock ticks.

Drama through ages
shares stoic spaces.
Medical manuscripts,
theorems, corollaries,
theories, theses, treatises,
shrink space and time.

Poems and prose
religion and science,
music, art,
fact, fiction,
epic and myth.
The playing field now level,
frivolity with gravitas
seated side by side
on the bookshelf.


Words,
from Neanderthal grunts,
scribed on caves.
Words,
from oral traditons
to scroll transfers.
Words,
parchment to paper,
woodblock to metal,
metal to silicon.
Gutenberg Press to fancy fonts
Words travel unwearied,
An endless digital dump.

Words in foreign tongues
through translations,
desperately request conversations.
Imploring within covers,
words invite to open,
mutely avowing,
tacitly agreeing,
in their consent to share.
Words, words, and words
spill out of a never ending
cornucopia.
They question, seek, find, and include.
Magical and spell-binding,
words promise, they transport,
and they wish to transform
in their infinite abundance.
Such bounty
cancels
paucity.

Words defy
deficiency
while defining
poverty,
shortage,
dearth,
shortfall.....
Found in infinite dictionaries,
Synonymously synching
in teeming thesauri
this word
lacks no habitat.

Yet,
scarcity
attains meaning,
only in
closed
minds
that
simply
refuse
to
read.