Pages Across the Table

A Poem by Felicia

It begins with one person,
a hand holding a book,
a voice whispering a sentence
that once belonged only to them.

Then it travels to the next person,
a story crosses a table.
It arrives in another mind.

Another reader with another memory,
another question, another way of seeing.
And suddenly, a book is no longer a solitary journey.
It becomes a conversation.
A place where strangers ask:
Did we notice the same thing?
What did I miss?

Book clubs taught me that community is not built from agreement.
It is built from the courage to remain at the table.

Every discussion is an act of trust.
I offer you my interpretation.
You offer me yours.
And somewhere between us,
the story grows larger.
This is how communities begin.
One reader becomes a listener.
One listener becomes a storyteller.
One gathering becomes another.
A table becomes a thousand tables.

Jakarta’s future is to protect the tables where stories can meet.
The tables where people remember
how to move at the speed of a typewriter.
Where lines are quoted with care.
Where questions are welcomed before answers arrive.
Where certainty removes its shoes at the door.
A city of literature is not only measured by the number of books it owns,
but by the number of conversations it keeps alive.