A Poem for Those Who Love to Read

 

Mathias Stohom, Young man reading by candlelight (17th cent.)

Mathias Stohom, Young Man Reading by Candlelight (17th cent.)

My father is a master of light comic verse, a genre often not taken seriously by literature departments. The ability to lift the spirits, however, is a precious gift that should not be underestimated. The following poem, about a lover of reading, is a reference to Jesus’s instructions (in Mark 4:21-22) that we not hide our light under a bushel.

This is good advice generally.  Sometimes, however, we just want to curl up with a good book.

The Retiring Candle

by Scott Bates

A Candle
Burned under
A bushel

He did not let his light shine forth
Among Men
He did not even let his light shine forth
Among Potatoes
The bushel was empty
(Being upside down)
And somewhat stuffy besides

They all called down to him
To come up on deck
And get some air
They wanted him to be the life of the party
To shine
Illuminate eternal verities
Set the world on fire

But no
He politely declined
He didn’t want to set the world on fire
All he wanted to do was stay down in the hold
And smoke
And curl up with a good book

Which he did

He smoked and curled up with
The poems of Yevtushenko
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Perrault the Duc de la Rochefoucauld
Erewhon and Through the Look Glass
Also assorted Elizabethan sonnets

When he had finished
He put himself out
And went to sleep

From Lupo’s Fables (Jump-Off Mountain Press,1983).

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