An Old Battered Book

I found an old, old battered book today.

Leather bound, faded and torn, cracked with age,

and covered in dust, mysterious one might say.

Listing all the answers seldom given in life.

Laboriously written in double rows,

on a thousand pages or more.

From the joys found in love to misfortunes strife

and the courage it takes to know.

Virtues thought lost and lessons taught

through the gentle wisdom we bore.

Each single letter was formed with grace

from the craft of an artist's hand.

The brightest forms of childhood dreams,

wind kissed, from far beyond

unbroken star wide lands.

As hard as the following fact may seem;

when the book is opened, read, and believed.

Death smiles wide with a crooked grin

and then lays down to rest,

as years pass by with no ill effect,

on their way to some other place.

They were listed in order, each separate one.

Alphabetized and categorized,

indexed, footnoted and such,

all placed exactingly page after page,

offering aid to this traveler's quest.

A priceless gift, from those who once were blind,

renewal at it's very best.

And then I thought, "What good is this how could it ever be used?"

For on no single page was there written or stamped

the questions we all must muse.

Now you might think and rightly so, "how could he know,

without ever first having seen."

But then you see, "the questions I take to task

may not be the questions you wish to ask."

Each person at length, with their own kind of strength.

Must measure in time, the reasons which rhyme.

R. P. Starbuck