POEM FOR A BOOKWORM

My regular readers know that I am a great bookworm. Though once I’d read almost every book that came my way, in my old age I am a bit more selective. I’ve swung over to mostly fiction, shunning those written in the first person or present tense, and I’ve narrowed down my reading to the lists of several favored authors. And I do mean lists. I keep a loose leaf binder filled with my favored authors’ book lists – titles, dates, have I read it, do I still have it, was it g, or vg, or vvg, or pu. You know what p u means. So you can imagine my delight when I read this poem in The Writer’s Almanac.  I like the line "life is continuous as long as they wait to be read." Yes. It's pleasing to have a pile of books sitting, waiting for me.

The Bookstall  

           by Linda Pastan

Just looking at them
I grow greedy, as if they were
freshly baked loaves
waiting on their shelves
to be broken open—that one
and that—and I make my choice
in a mood of exalted luck,
browsing among them
like a cow in sweetest pasture.

For life is continuous
as long as they wait
to be read—these inked paths
opening into the future, page
after page, every book
its own receding horizon.
And I hold them, one in each hand,
a curious ballast weighting me
here to the earth.