text © Raj Aurmugam, Nov 2007

outside the suburban shopping centre

school kids just freed hang about

doing what kids do best:

sitting at bus-stops and changing

quickly out of uniforms

kissing, exchanging smoke, sitting mouth-to-mouth

or stuffing themselves with junk food

and girls screaming, boys holding court

and wailing, wailing

and laughing and exchanging looks;

and inside

very intent able-bodied people

are hunting for bargains

but here often in the library

there are only mother-aproned kids driven

in by eager parents

and old men

and wrinkled women

taking

ages

to move

between spines

is this what reading’s all about?

for enforced kids

and something we do

when we are retired

and weakened old folks and invalids?

and, oh yes, also for wimps, and exams and qualifications… 

ah but perhaps I live in the narrow world

of the suburb

and people elsewhere and all over the world

have found the proper uses and pleasures of reading

What’s reading for?

text © Raj Aurmugam, Nov 2007