Hardcover books

This is inspired by Kelly Flanagan's latest post http://drkellyflanagan.com/2016/03/16/this-could-be-the-difference-between-a-life-of-suffering-or-joy/ Thank you, Kelly!

I admit...I have never read an E-book. I do write my daily reflections on a computer. But reading? Reading is a visual and tactile experience.

Cases in point: Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds. Spend the extra money and get the hardcover version. The flying birds are not in the paperback. 

Or try the hardcover version of George Saunders, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip. Years ago I bought out the remaindered hardcovers at the local B&N, gave them to everyone at Christmas. A couple people appreciated it :)

If we wait long enough

For the paperback

To be published,

They may well be cheaper.

They are most always

More satisfying.

Even the paper.

My beloved

Waxes eloquent

About the paper,

The texture of the print.

He touches everything.

It’s the way he is wired.

In early years

He was a printer.

I have a book on my shelf

A bird flies through the pages

Like the flipbooks

We made as children.

The first pages

Are blank

Then the birds

Begin their flight.

Good reasons all

Tis the season for oh so many things.

This is the time of year

People cancel

And add sessions:

Good reasons all.

Me

I do the same.

These days I try

To think ahead.

When I can’t get there,

I don’t go.

I practice doing other things.

There are books to be read,

Poems to be written

Prayers

Always prayers

They do not require place or posture

Sometimes I remember things

Long forgotten

I cancel and add at will

Sometimes at whim.

Good reasons all.

New chapter, same book

Recently I have rediscovered many friends and connections from the past. I wonder how they got from there to here. With many I have missed a lot of chapters. With some, it seems, they have erased a number of chapters, maybe even think they have started a new book. Still... it's all connected and it all counts. New chapter, same book.

My friends and connections

Have mostly moved

Into new chapters

With subtitles

I never would have thought of,

So many chapters

Written it seems

In new vernacular.

I know

The connecting points

From old to new

Have been there all along.

In this spring of our lives

We unearth new things

Which are not new

At all;

New chapters, perhaps,

But the very same book

We have each been writing

From the beginning.

Begin again

I found a book at Logan Airport.  It was number 18 on the best seller list.  I have not been paying attention to best sellers in recent years.  They are too often a disappointment.  Research shows this Logan Airport book has been on the best seller list for over  a year.  Really?  The title caught me: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.  How could I not reel it in and at least look into its eyes?  It reminds me of the time I discovered The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders (years ago now) and bought a number of the books when they went on remainder.  I gave them out as Christmas gifts that year.  One, maybe two, of the recipients was as enchanted as I was.  It seems to be the way with books.  Best seller lists are often not the best source for me.  Until, of course, they are.

There was a time

I read new fiction

Voraciously.

Even in college,

Translating Homer,

I fit new books

Between those pages,

Gobbled new authors

To find the few

Who spoke to my whimsy,

Turned the world

Upside down

Inside out;

Authors who said

Think of it

This way

That way

Practice a headstand

While reading.

Don*t go to sleep

Until you find the end,

Begin again.

Fly cast

For books.

Pull them in,

Look fully into their eyes,

Let them go.

Begin again.

Always

Begin again.