On the Line

Traveling the DC-NYC rail line, a few hours out of time, good for reading, looking out at the houses in the towns that we rush through, some places I have only visited, Baltimore, Philadelphia, other places where I've lived,New Brunswick,New Jersey, Rahway, Elizabeth (my maternal grandparents owned a shop there), and all the miles of houses, the tens of thousands of people living their lives within, do they read? what do they read? mostly best-sellers? or some reread the books they enjoyed at college or books they are studying now, and what part of the night do they give over to reading? or is it mostly television, the cable series that have become our new soap operas? the news, the news, the news? Ezra Pound writes "Poetry is news that stays news..."
Why read? To know other places, other minds, to travel at greater velocity than currently possible, to traverse an ancient glacier on snow shoes, to fly beyond the asteroid belt, to soar into the heart of the cosmos, before falling back into the comfort of seemingly immortal moments strung together leading to an unknown end... Why read? Why not? Why must? Why should? Stories, poems, novels, everything and nothing...and everything again...