Dark Sentiments Season 7 – Day 4: Most Loved and Frightful Seed
Posted By Randy on October 4, 2016
Canadian Actress and Model Shalom Harlow photographed in conference with an unidentified fellow avid reader by Bruce Weber.
Most Loved and Frightful Seed
By LFM
I would show you a thing
To uplift and inspire.
Cast a glow on the path
To whate’r you desire.
This mysterious thing’s,
Filled with magickal quirks,
It holds wishes to grant —
If you know how it works.
It can give you ideas
To review and compare
With the ones in your head
That were already there.
Answer questions unasked,
Confound those that you do,
And inspired or confused?
Well, that’s all up to you!
It can speak without sound
If you’ve mind to give ear,
Thoughts writ by another
A long when from here.
It’s made of ideas cast
In ink, neatly packed
In thick stacks of paper
As fiction or fact.
Crack open its covers
And dare take a drink —
It can change how you feel,
Even more, how you think.
Books are easy to love,
And to treasure as kin
That tell tales of wonder,
Privation and sin.
Left unread, it does nothing
But gathering motes,
And if dampened, grow mildew
In e’er thickening coats.
Yet, no matter how loved,
In an attic one day,
By its title alone
May it be cast away.
It may threaten agendas
And deeply held wishes
That now view it as fuel
Or as food for the fishes.
For the Love of a book
Is a wonderful thing,
But an object of hatred
When zealotry’s king.
Its strength is its weakness —
It’s only a seed,
To plant it is easy –
All you need do is read.
But once it’s been planted
And started to sprout,
That’s the part that fills zealots
With sickening doubt.
For absent the knowledge
Of where it took root,
How can a zealot know
Which ones to shoot?
No matter how learned
Or filled with delight,
Once planted, the seed
Need be nowhere in sight!
One of my dreams was a wall of books like that. Each time I moved, the herd was thinned. Now, I have a shelf or two, and grateful for that.
Over the years my library has essentially dwindled down to a precious few (not counting mine) for various reasons that were caused by the vagaries of apocalyptic and horrendous forced evacuations with particular individuals that attempted to bring permanent damage to my psyche but who have been relegated to the disposal units readily available in whatever form they took at the time to protect the brilliance of this writer. Perhaps had the opportunity to experience the bliss of the two above things owuld have been supremely encouraging for more and certainly virulent creativity with my pen rather than with my sword. However, the verisimilitude of your iambic sobriety brings immeasurable joy to one of my ilk.Bravo, bravo.