TERRI
WITEK
Reading to Children
When the hero leaves home, his fortune follows.
Today’s rules? No stopping. And he mustn’t lie.
If you ask, the book says something else
beautiful—that when catastrophes waltz
in dark hills, we all sleep brokenly.
When the hero leaves home, his fortune follows
in palm-fitting talismans—a green stone,
a snail shell
and a fly attach themselves almost amorously.
If you ask, the book says something else
worth holding: such items will be gold in the
next fools’
village, where even the stars seem deliriously cock-eyed.
When the hero leaves home, his fortune follows
like a footsore hound and, after inching dim miles,
even a small, pinstriped snail shell’s hungry.
If you ask, the book says something else
besides what villagers expect of roving immortals
(crops and sweet wells, and they’d prefer not to die).
So what still shivers and groans in our hills?
The book says only “Ask by and by.” 
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