How different is a bookworm
from any other worm, you might
wonder. A worm is
a worm is a worm. Munching on
paper devouring words. Was he a reader
in a previous life? Perhaps a writer who
dedicated his life to words
now forgotten; dead, his body
rotting in a grave eaten up by other
worms. Ideas created inside an old room,
sitting at
a table paper and pen in front
he scribbled out lines
that made the world stand up and take
note. Was that why he returned
to books? A cruel twist of karma, bad
deeds of a past lived in sin taking
over turning him into a creature without a brain
to understand the meaning of his
life or a backbone to stand up
straight? But this was no ordinary
worm but a worm
of words no less. A wordsmith come here
to wait out his life between folds
of paper devouring, gorging on
the writing of a forgotten one whose lines sit
in tomes stacked on shelves inside rooms
where people come in silence, to read
and ponder, meditate on the
images hidden within the folds. Likewise
the worm, miraculously saved from a
life on a garbage dump, sits
between the old pages delighting in
stories, consuming to his heart's content.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem