The Bookworm

Your blogger wrung her hands and prayed and tried to bring forth a blog piece this evening, but it just wasn't happening.  The muse wasn't with her. But she did find a poem, a little ditty as John Mellencamp, or John Cougar or John Cougar Mellencamp or whatever he is calling himself these days would say.

I chanced across it the other night, the forties had taken hold of my brain and I was trying to recall the name of the teacher we (all the girls in the 8th grade) thought was hot, (Mr. Caldwell) and I found it stuck inside the yearbook that I looked in to find the name of the Hot for Teacher guy.

I wrote this was I was about 15-16 I guess, I was in High School though, so not sure why it was in my Junior High Yearbook?

I am the author of this, so I guess this is sort of a blog piece.

The Bookworm

Exact is the yarn I spin of my readings
Chart of my book learnings highs and lows
Time loss and lack of exercise my deepest sorrows
Lack of shelf space and social calamity
Daily I've borne sitting in a plethora of chairs
Fearful of an unbalanced book budget
Watching as time passed, while I sat enraptured with Gone with the Wind
Fast to the floor my feet were frozen
Gripped by the appearance of Damn Yankee soldiers at Tara
My eyes ceased to blink and I stopped not for sustenance
Little he who is engrossed in a book takes notice of
How, sick at heart, over Rhett's leaving, the wretch!
I read the novel through
Bare of nourishment and banished from family and friends
Swathed in blanket, tears stinging my eyes, glasses sliding from my nose
Nought I heard but the characters in my book, "I don't know nothin' about birthin no babies!"
For amusement I had Aunt Pitty's swoonings
For sorrow I had Rhett's final pronouncement, "Frankly my dear..."
The cry of Melanie's baby, the mirth of Rhett and Scartlett's first meeting
Shrill through the roar of the Confederate army
Yankees charging through the war-torn south
Raping and pillaging as they march through
And the glasses slide from my nose
Little tears drop off my face
With no help from the pressure of my glasses
They slide all the way down
Gasping and choking back sobs, I reach for a tissue
The book slides off my lap and falls to the floor as I escape in a daydream worthy of The Great Gatsby himself
Oh wildly my heart soars as I read of Oliver Twist, the drama of the Phantom of the Opera, the sorrow and misery of Les Miserables and the Decameron
Daily, hourly I crave the book
As an addict craves his next fix
No amount of book reading ever appears to satiate me
No deeds ever done by any hero, match those played out in my imagination
Which is of course fueled by the library of books stored there
Ever I long for a trip to the library, a jaunt to the bookstore
Winter freezes, spring brightens, summer burns, yet I miss these all
Ever lost in the latest bestseller
The perils and pleasures of he who readeth
Do heed the roosters warning
Morning will overtake you
Those who the night hath departed from
Reading the night through
Fatigue, nay, slumber will overtake thee
Suddenly my conscience awakens
Soareth afar my head sits the timepiece
It reads 4:05 a.m.
Hovers on high, o'er my conscience
You should be asleep it prods
I lay the volume down on my night table, bidding it a regretful goodnight
Yet the morrow lies before me, new mysteries to explore, new romances to blossom, new territories to chart
Thank thou goodest Lord for literature!


As faithfully as I could, I have reproduced this exactly as I wrote it. The inner critic in me was constantly editorializing, embellishing, re-imagining sentences, cringing a bit at the mawkish use of a sort of pidgin Elizabethan Shakespearesque language, but I kept it just as it was, marveling a bit at the fact that I am still very much the same as I was when I was a nerdy sophomore or junior. I still frequently read longer than I ought and I still daydream about being romanced by a tall handsome fellow on his steed, or being the heroine solving the mystery and saving the day and for that fact, I am truly and profoundly grateful,

As I work and strive towards being the heroine of my own life, sometimes it's good to stumble on a bit of the past and realize that inside, I already am.