WRITTEN OFF

“They don’t teach handwriting anymore. They
say we don’t need it.”

My grandson

John Donne confessed: “I cannot

say I loved, for who can say

he was killed yesterday?”

Anyone

who ever loved agrees.

Equally

ironic was Minucius Felix:

“Is it not foolish to worship

what one ought to weep for,

and to weep for what one ought

to worship?”

That’s dated tomorrow.

Robert Frost insisted that

the sound of words should match

their sense, which makes speed-

reading an insult to poetry

and a total waste of attention.

Flaubert dismissed all progress

as vain unless it was moral.

Immoral progress still prevails.

All these are quotes from books

I’ve read.

Quoting or jotting

notes in margins or underlining

words is how I chat

with authors as I read.

It lifts

communication to communion.

Screen-viewing fails because it

seems more public than a reader’s

privacy before a page.

Viewing’s gift is recognition.

Understanding comes with words.

That’s why I’m close to books

in all their bound variety—

the bookness of books.

And yet

what else are books but scripts

translated into print?

Each written

page produces multiple printed

copies, affirming the root

difference between machinofacturing

and manufacturing—made by hand.

The privacy I taste while reading

handwritten letters is even

more intimate.

The writer’s

presence on the page is life

itself transcribed.

Why else

are letters of love, praise,

gratitude or understanding rarely

thrown away?

What the heart

prompts the hand to say

on paper has no equal.

Imagine

discovering a handwritten sonnet

of Shakespeare’s signed by Shakespeare.

Imagine it side by side 

with thousands of printed copies

of the same sonnet.

Which one

brings you closer to Shakespeare?

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