Day 459

Each time her family has been displaced
the child brings her book
with her, the one book
she ran out of the house with
when the house was about
to be bombed.  It’s only because
it was what she happened
to be reading just then.  It wasn’t
her favorite book, not even
a very memorable book;  but now
she has read it over and over,
each time discovering
something new.  The book
has become like a trusted
friend:  she knows
exactly what it will bring her.
A story about a family
that travels a long way:  children
who play, who work
together, who have secrets
and jealousies.  Who stay alive.
Each time she goes back
into the book, she retrieves
a life.  Once she was able
to imagine a life like that,
a family like that, a trip
across an open land like that.
She returns to the book
as though it were a sheltering place.
As though it could take her in.