It could be folded into many shapes;
some cultures made art forms from bending and creasing it
into thousands of things: animals, geometric figures, even wallets-
of my favorites were the jumping frog and drinking cup.

Obviously it was three dimensional, but hardly seemed so,
with two broad, rectangular faces and only the tiniest
fraction of an inch separating them; a sheet pressed flat
by unknown factories in some unknown city.

It accepted lead and ink, but only the lightest touch of the first
could be erased, and if you haven’t any idea what an eraser is,
imagine a delete button that doesn’t quite remove the original text.

We wrote upon it, doodling love notes, sketches, and poems,
all in our own handwriting, which, if you’ve never been taught,
was the individual movements of the pen as guided
by our hands and fingers, rather like a font,
but unique to each person, and often messy and illegible.

If it sounds impractical, remember that you have never
held open a book and breathed in, your nose leaving grease prints
on the pages close to the binding, and young pupils, that’s a shame.
So what if it could tear or disintegrate? Fragility made it precious.

Finally, it was made from trees, and if you think that’s funny,
you’ve never stood in a razed clearing and weighed the options;
your most beloved medium or a living forest.

And if it sounds like an easy decision, children, it wasn’t.

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