Words, Not Walls
A series of poems about Literacy —Chosen for further distribution 🙏🏼
Let's share a secret me first, — -then you, mine about a girl I once knew, who could not would not read- words not intended for her not clear for her or smooth for her or easy to chew she spat them out and refused to look.
She was not a reader, until one day a book picked her out of a crawling crowd and tipped her into another world.
The grandmothers of long ago taught her how to stand hold turn pages without sinking into quicksand, taught her how to move words like shapes into feeling she would learn to recognize one day.
In time, words would form transform transcend into boats full of bounty, bright beacons in a crowded classroom.
Wrapped away as you are now lost in thought as you are now, in-between the primary years, soft by shade mimicking time focused on discipline inspired as you are now.
She began to write secretly with defiance in the margin late at night underlining words she would save for later, eating them up like a hungry caterpillar.
© Lennie Varvarides, April 2021
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