Beyond Poem by gershon hepner

She goest beyond where heavens are,
or so she says when falling
into my arms, when she’s not far
from voices that are calling
her from the past that’s spread as close
on her as mango jam
on toast she eats, but, unmorose,
I’m happy that I am
still closer to her than those voices,
because she is the essence
of all my present cherished choices
which I feel in her presence.
She’s always coming back to me
because she reads my mind,
and when she does this I can see
her leave the past behind.

Inspired by an article by Simon Romero on Luis Soriano, who brings books to remote villages in Colombia (“Acclaimed Colombian Institution Has 4,800 Books and 10 Legs, ” NYT, October 20,2008) :
In a ritual repeated nearly every weekend for the past decade here in Colombia’s war-weary Caribbean hinterland, Luis Soriano gathered his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto, in front of his home on a recent Saturday afternoon. Sweating already under the unforgiving sun, he strapped pouches with the word “Biblioburro” painted in blue letters to the donkeys’ backs and loaded them with an eclectic cargo of books destined for people living in the small villages beyond. His choices included “Anaconda, ” the animal fable by the Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga that evokes Kipling’s “Jungle Book”; some Time-Life picture books (on Scandinavia, Japan and the Antilles): and the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language. “I started out with 70 books, and now I have a collection of more than 4,800, ” said Mr. Soriano,36, a primary school teacher who lives in a small house here with his wife and three children, with books piled to the ceilings…. On a trip this month into the rutted hills, where about 300 people regularly borrow books from him, he reminisced about a visit to the National Library in the capital, Bogotá, where he was stunned by the building’s immense collection and its Art Deco design. “I felt so ordinary in Bogotá, ” Mr. Soriano said. “My place is here.” At times, on the remote landscape dotted with guayacán trees, it was hard to tell whether beast or man was in control. Once, Mr. Soriano lost his patience, trying to coax his stubborn donkeys to cross a stream. Still, it was clear why Mr. Soriano does what he does. In the village of El Brasil, Ingrid Ospina,18, leafed through a copy of “Margarita, ” the classic book of poetry by Rubén Darío of Nicaragua, and began to read aloud.
She went beyond where the heavens are
And to the moon said, au revoir.
How naughty to have flown so far
Without the permission of Papa.
“That is so beautiful, Maestro, ” Ms. Ospina said to the teacher. “When are you coming back? ”


10/20/08