I Own a School

I own a school late at night
with empty rooms and all the books
Some old and outdated,
used up. Occasionally I throw these books out,
the books that did not wait
for me to learn to read.

Like at all schools,
some are thrown out.
You can't stop it.
The Emptiness
the Anger
the Fear.
The book that is lost
like so many of us who walked these halls.

The stories are alive.
To lose one is to lose a life
before it has lived.
A book that did not wait
for me to learn to read.

Written at the
1995 California Literacy Statewide Conference
by the following adult learners: Steve Brittian, Mary Miller,
Curtis Henderson, Roberta Peterson,
Susan Lewis, Emma Torrez,
Bob Mendez, Emma's brother Art,
Mike Yarn