This section is called "Books" but that's an aspiration, not a reality. 

I was teaching a KC Art Institute sketchbook class, feeling pulled in too many directions, and took walks every chance I had - usually to the same brick road. I took the advice I gave my class: notice what you notice, then notice what you don't. 

Why was I drawn to this brick road? The patterns of merging rows, the colors and shapes of individual bricks, 

With a limestone pebble I drew windows and doors on a house-shaped brick, and for the rest of that semester my sketchbook was that brick road. OCD a friend called it, walking up and down each row of bricks, studying brick's shapes, looking for images, with a piece of charcoal and a limestone pebble, for dark and light marks. 

This story grew out of that experience.

Pirates have parrots. 

Books have bookmarks. 
Backseat drivers, 
funny accents,
stuck on words. 


Like a parrot 
on its perch 
a bookmark says, 
AVAST!
(STOP!)
DIG HERE. 
TREASURE.


When your day’s 
too short 
to roll a booksworth 
of Wordsworth 
back and forth 
past your peepholes,
a bookmark  
hits PAUSE. 
Time out. 
Take five. 
Sleep on it.


Without a bookmark 
your fingers 
can mark your place -
and 
if those fingers 
were all thumbs, 
you might be fine 
leaving them there,
marking that page, 
like a paw in a trap, 
until the bookworm bug 
bit again. 
If, on the other hand -
or EITHER hand -
 you want 
to remove your fingers, 
to use your fingers, 
good bookmarks 
are helpful. 
Bad bookmarks?
They don’t 
ruin books
the same way 
bad movies do, 
but they CAN
dog-ear, deface, 
and destroy pages,
and they CAN 
snap spines!
What makes
a bad bookmark?
Anything bulky, 
pointy, pokey, 
sharp edged, 
soppy, sticky
greasy, dirty, 
or drippy -
wet laundry, 
soccer cleats, 
staple guns, 
rusty nails, 
iron chains, 
cleavers, cutlery, 
flaming swords, 
garden rakes, 
monkey wrenches,
ice cream cones, 
sweetened cereals, 
raw eggs, bbq, 
jelly donuts,
mud pies, 
snowballs, 
stemware,  
squirt guns, 
dolls that pee or cry…
etc. 
There are 
better options. 


Zillions of 
good bookmarks 
are custom designed 
and printed on sturdy 
strips of card stock. 
And there are 
bazillions of
“double-duty” 
fill-ins - 
receipts, photos, 
you name it. 
Finding a post card
or doodled note, 
a shopping list 
or ticket stub,
lost and burrowed 
in a borrowed book?
It’s a time machine,
 an unwritten chapter,
a message in a bottle. 


A bookmark 
is the X 
that marks 
the spot. 
It’s a spring board 
in and out 
of another world;
the tip of the iceberg;
the gold tooth 
that caps the smile; 
the blinky sign 
that says 
NOW PLAYING;
a cresting ship 
on the horizon; 
the hour hand 
always 
tick-tock-
ticking toward 
ever after; 
the tip of the spoon 
stirring the sugar; 
the stacked-chair 
signaling CLOSED ; 
the nagging needle 
between E and F; 
a bedside Bronx cheer 
from the unread stack 
on the end table;
a breadcrumb 
on the trail
to meanwhile...


Bookmarks sit 
in the fold of a book, 
its “gutter” -
marginal
printed-page 
placeholders,
page-boy
side jobs.
 
Still. 
What of
the bookmark
that escorts you 
through a great read, 
the bookmark
that, like a GPS, 
leads you to 
that recipe you wanted,
those words 
that opened your mind,
or touched your heart?


All I’ve owed 
to the bookmark
is in this ode 
to the 
bookmark.
Now, bookmark,
where were we?