Reading

Proper pronunciation is key when writing rhymes
For instance
I just learned scythe does not pair well with tithe, 
but in fact riffs with smith
And after decades of reading it wrongly
and I said scythe aloud improperly,
for the last time, and was corrected on the spot
Oh the blushing, adrenaline rushing
and wondered who else had heard but
 
My bride reminds, do not chide those
who mispronounce as they likely
learned from reading
And reading is noble and humbling and, 
pronunciation aside, 
a profound teacher in the art of thinking and blazing new trails and 
she looks back down to her book
 
The difference between a sickle and a scythe
is more than simply size.
They both cut weeds
or grain,
or the throat of an offending villain. 
The sickle, with or without a pearl handle,
is for the
up-close and personal.
It requires bending over, and best for minor editing
you know,
Neurosurgery for a garden or nursery
 
Where the scythe lacks the intimacy of
the more-subtle sickle,
she makes up with her sweeping super-sized swaths
through those fields
of tall grass and ignorance
we used to call
amber waves of grain
giving way
to the frontiersman’s blaze
heading west to a better place
even when that truth brings pain
 
Scythe swaths are broader, imperfect
emotionally distant,
not intimate
A different knife, a different device,
Requiring two hands
to slice,
 
Different scythes slash different paths
Moses had his staff
and Einstein, math. 
And now there is Eliza’s gasp
That enlighten, awaken, and shatter old maps
Changing lives well before the reaper’s last act.
 
Trailblazers blaze with swath-making tools
That benefit fools
like me that only read, and
                                                                                                                          
Reading remains noble and humbling and, 
pronunciation aside, 
a profound teacher
in the art of thinking and blazing new trails,
 
even when words don’t sound as written,
I hear reading’s a cure for fascism.