Reading by Osmosis

  
   Well  ” 
  
 Mark Twain, Hart Crane, 
         and Ursula K. LeGuin” 
         We've mastered their books with a difficult trick: 
         We've read them outside in. 
  
 Percy B. Shelley and Machiavelli 
         and Norman Vincent Peale” 
         We've never tried opening one of their books. 
         We know them by their feel. 
  
 Does reading seem boring? Does reading seem hard? 
         Does reading seem too ferocious? 
  
 	Then pick up a book and just give it a twirl. 
         You'll learn it by osmosis. 
  
   Because  ” 
  
 Osmosis is the mostest. 
         Osmosis is the best. 
         Osmosis is the closest thing to reading without rest. 
  
 Osmosis means absorbing. 
         Osmosis means so much. 
         Osmosis means we're soaking up the books we barely touch. 
  
         Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
                 and Henry David Thoreau, 
                 and Daniel Defoe, 
                 and Jacques Rousseau, 
                 and, oh, 
                 hundreds of others we know” 
  
 We bobble, bounce, and throw them. 
         We never even look. 
         Osmosis means we know them without opening a book. 
   You know  ” 
  
 My sister osmoted   The Mill on the Floss  , 
         a wonderful book, and gave us a gloss: 
         concerning a man named John Stuart Mill 
         with terrible teeth that made him quite ill. 
         Why”oh, why”wouldn't he floss? 
  
 My brother osmoted   The Lord of the Rings  , 
         a story of insects with thousands of wings” 
         or was that a book called   Lord of the Flies  ? 
         Oh well, we're getting wise 
         by learning the things that osmosis now brings. 
  
 We'll juggle the books   Little Women   and   Men   
         (they're all about dwarves in a mountainy den) 
         and throw in a copy of   Watership Down   
         (concerning a boat and some sailors who drown), 
         and then”we'll run to the bookstore again. 
   But first  ” 
  
 Let's have a lesson from Doktor Derzenna, 
         who comes here today all the way from Vienna 
         to teach us the meaning of difficult things: 
  
 “Ach, vell, now ve begin” 
  
           Osmooosis  , zis ist meaning 
                 zat vhen two zings are leaning, 
                 ze one into ze other tries to sneak. 
  
         Ze liquid on ze right, 
                 zrough membranes overnight, 
                 vill to ze left most definitely leak. 
  
         While coming here I sat 
                 on dictionaries fat 
                 und learned all zis by riding on ze book! 
                 But if you have neurosis, 
                 mine genius ist hypnosis. 
                 You   vill   mine eyes most deeply into look.” 
   Ummmm  ” 
  
   Neurosis, hypnosis, psychosis, meiosis  : 
         lovely words, in their way. 
           Cirrhosis, necrosis  , and also   thrombosis  : 
         pleasing, but harder to say. 
  
 And   atrocious prognosis   of   misdiagnosis   
         for aches of   precocious sclerosis  ” 
         but words will find their   apotheosis   
         remains the great   osmosis  . 
  
 We boast! We boast! 
                 Osmosis is the most 
                         phenomenal way 
                                 to read today 
                                         while eating jam and toast! 
  
 We shout! We plead! 
                 Osmosis we will need 
                         for playing jacks 
                                 and munching snacks 
                                         and dancing while we read! 
   So  ” 
  
 Rebecca West and Edgar Guest: 
                 We'll never be certain which one is the best. 
         Christopher Smart and Jean-Paul Sartre: 
                 Just think of the wonders they have to impart. 
         Poets of genius like Julia Moore 
                 and William McGonagall call for a roar. 
         William Shakespeare”Edward de Vere: 
                 The difference isn't entirely clear. 
         John Donne and Thom Gunn: 
                 Osmoting them both is a gallon of fun. 
  
 Somerset Maugham and L. Frank Baum, 
                 Josiah Royce and James Joyce, 
                         John Bunyan and Damon Runyon, 
                                 Graham Greene and Molly Keane, 
                                 Tom Paine and Ed McBain, 
                         Ring Lardner and John Gardner, 
                 Alice Munro and Arthur Rimbaud, 
         and, oh, hundreds of others we know. 
   Because  ” 
  
 Osmosis is the mostest. 
         Osmosis is the best. 
         Osmosis is the closest thing to reading without rest. 
  
 Osmosis means absorbing. 
         Osmosis means so much. 
         Osmosis means we're soaking up the books we barely touch. 
  
 We hold them to our noses. 
         We brush them with our clothes. 
         We're learning by osmosis when we tap them with our toes. 
  
 We pile them on the table. 
         We slide them on the floor. 
         We stack them into stairways and we climb up for some more. 
  
 We bobble, bounce, and throw them. 
         We never even look. 
         Osmosis means we know them without opening a book.