To Read

to read a book
is to know a life.
it is to take the knowledge
of a human,
and to distill it into words.
it is to take the mind
          of one
who took-in the minds of thousands:
their thoughts, their worries,
their wisdom and their faults.
it is to take the imagination
and the past
of a generation.
it is to go from life of orphanhood
to one with countless parents.
to read,
is to know the world
and all who ever lived in it
to read, is human.
the printed letter is the line
between an animal
and man