by Tod Christensen
Have you ever thought about the difference between live and survive
the emotional difference between existing and feeling alive?
Art and culture through the ages have helped us to evolve
pushing our imaginations and creativity toward puzzles we solve
Great literature has been the cornerstone for all that we’ve become
combined with art and music they are the parts to our sum
Homer introduced us to the legend of Achilles and his heel
A phrase many know but not knowing it was from Homer that we steal
Books and stories and even poems bring us pictures and scenes in our mind
put to bed with these stories or filling up the hours when we feel confined
Transported to a brand new place where we dreamed and wondered
and watched as down into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred
JM Barrie told us about Peter and Wendy and all the lost boys
while Louis Lamour and Zane Gray spun campfire tales of cowboys
John Stienbeck gave us the classic The Grapes of Wrath
and Mark Twain found a way to both teach us a lesson and make us laugh
Books and their authors took us to worlds only they could create and birth
like J.R.R.Tolkein and his Lord of the Rings we could find only in Middle Earth
Harry Potter opened up the world of magic to a brand new generation
when they found the secret entrance hidden between platforms at the train station
And how can we forget the real life lessons that for years we refused to see
like the one we learned in the classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Or the much earlier Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
that showed us when it came to treating others we still had so far to go
The stories by Dr. Suess both taught us and made us smile
like when he showed us the places we’d go and how we would enjoy every mile
And there are the darker classics that scared us by Edgar Allen Poe
where we first learned that at night there are some places we truly don’t want to go
So stories come to us in all shapes and forms
teaching us and entertaining us with all kinds of subjects and platforms
Pushing us deep into our minds giving us the courage to travel and go far
teaching us that who we are now is not really all that we are
