I got my hands on a poetry collection
published in 1890
I am truly delighted
because it is by a poet I love
I am afraid to open
and to turn the pages it
it might fall out
Yet, as I turn the pages and read the poems
I can hear and feel the breath of an old friend
I haven't seen in ages
Through that, to keep him alive
I end up reading it
all the way through
I keep reading it over and over
closing the book
will not make a friend vanish
from my memory again
This time
as I turn the pages
I capture it with my heart's camera
and store it within me
I want to hold onto that old name
that beautiful smile
and the time when he cherished me
Born in 1890, like this poetry.