The Bookmark
A bookmark keeps a modest promise:
here is where the reading paused.
The earlier pages stay.
The later pages
have their chance.
A thin strip,
perhaps red,
can hold a place
without holding back the story.
There is something useful
in that small arrangement
for the journal taking shape:
continue what can continue,
leave the next choice clear,
keep the work
where it can be found again.
The saved songs have recordings,
their intended words,
the notes about how they were made.
The pictures have begun
answering poems in another form.
Each arrival deserves its name.
Each open question
deserves a place beside it.
Some choices need another look.
Let them wait
with their meaning intact.
No hurried flourish
can do the work
of that return.
In the imagined book,
the red strip falls
between two pages.
One carries a sentence
already written.
The other leaves
a little room.
That space is part of the design.
A living journal can grow
through patient beginnings,
careful endings,
and intervals that keep
the path between them clear.
When the pages open again,
the mark will offer
what it was made to offer:
a place to continue,
with the earlier work
still there.
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