Written for my dear friend, Jim. For 25 years we walked our neighborhood at 6
a.m. and talked about many things important and trivial. He told me about the things he loved and
those that angered him. Twenty-five
years of talks is a long time. I have moved away and I miss those walks.
I am Volume G of Britannica
In a carton on the floor,
Storage closet 83,
Made archaic
By the internet,
But I remember sunlight
While on a shelf, my friend
Jim
Picking me up, always
Thumbing through my pages
With tender, inquisitive fingers.
Our first time,
He looked up gooseberries
For a lady wearing a
flowered hat.
His loving, but nervous touch
Betrayed his anxiousness to
find
The answer to her inquiry.
One night he was alone
As he opened me and
searched
For Gettysburg. He spent
So much time with me;
I could tell he loved
Reading about the Civil
War.
Then, there was the
afternoon
He became angry with a
librarian
Who stayed behind the desk
and sent
A student alone in my
direction.
He lectured her: take the
patron
To the section, select the correct
volume
And show them the page.
I felt goose bumps.
He would have stayed into
old age,
Had he not also been caught
in a techno-web.
He retired before his touch
was cold.
Me, I am heading for a
funeral pyre,
But I know Jim loved me
And I adored him
And his insatiable search
For answers.
