Lest We Forget

Don’t think it, don’t say it, don’t write or read

it as if it never was at all. Snow, the deep, blank

nothingness of oblivion on the page. Imagine

the whole world idea of it is lost. Consider Twain,

Melville, Dickens, Lorca and Neruda, Poe, Brontë

and Hemingway... And what of Shakespeare, Haley,

Angelou, Walker and Hughes, where would we be?

Lost, I say to you, never to be found in the endless

expanse of universal illiteracy. I could spend a life-

time naming the names of those who got us to our

coveted place in humanity today. Think of they

who may have transported you, who thought, said,

wrote and were read in a way which inspired you

to turn page after page. And lest we forget, let us

thank God for Gutenberg who had the good sense

to press the issue to begin with.

Chris Hanch 2-12-19