Poetry Friday - Used Bookstore

           Thanks to Christie Wyman who is hosting this Poetry Friday, at her blog, Wondering and Wandering, here. Take a look at "Community Poem Part 2 when you visit, full of all the ways poetry "is"! 

A small peek!

         Many poetry books are donated at the used bookstore where I work. I wish I could make them available to each of you! I do bring some home to read but there are too, too many for me to bring them all.

         However, sometimes when I glance through one, a poem grabs me, and that's what happened this past week when my noiseless entourage by Charles Simic came through in a bag of donations. Inside, among many others loved, is a poem about a Used Bookstore. I can't find it online but will share a few lines & use it as a mentor text for my own poem about MY bookstore.

           Used Bookstore - Simic

Lovers hold hands in never-opened novels.

The page with a recipe for cucumber soup is missing.

A dead man writes of his happy childhood on a farm,

of writing in a balloon over Lake Erie.

                   two other verses complete his poem

            This 50-Year-Old Bookstore

Started by a group of women declaring that

more books were needed in the neighborhood.

They rented a room in the library and started

offering books at two dollars per, one for kids' books.

It grows into its own musty place, a bakery before, now housing sweet words

instead of pastries and cakes. Here's a display within a glass case,

no longer keeping flies away, but luring another kind of taste. 

Kids' books sit low, a tangle of board books and early readers

while a gang of mature stories keeps an ABC order until browsers

break up the group, take home some Cleary, DiCamillo, and Riordans.

The stories remain loved even with worn bindings.

Wander up steep stairs to the mysteries, many spilling off shelves

into a bounty of boxes. Mystery readers love them, yet keep

only long enough to read them, then trade for more.

Visitors who know the store stride to favorite sections.

They may wish a new (used) fiction to meet new people

or a memoir of a hero that inspires living one's life for good. 

All for the coming trip, beach reads, or for a bedroom nook!

Different kinds of pain keep the health and religion shelves rather empty.   

Yet, sometimes a new donation appears to mean someone has found remedies 

and wants to pass them along.

Can you tell my imagination jogs along with the books, watching which leave 

quickly and which ones cry out for only a peek? 

"Open me!" is on the binding if only you look close enough. 

 Linda Baie ©

Every day Celebrations

            

      Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share. I haven't written a celebration post since early April, first caught in the throes of a poem a day in April, then it didn't happen week after week. I have been much more busy at the bookstore where I volunteer. For those of you who don't know, this is a used bookstore that is run entirely by volunteers, and I am the volunteer coordinator. It's great to work with all these people, but takes time, and some finesse I think, too. I celebrate the more than forty volunteers who keep our bookstore going for book lovers!

     It's been a strange weather year for us. We've had winter when we expect spring, and summer when we expect, yes, spring. I hope things settle down soon! But whatever has happened, the flowers seem more beautiful than ever and I celebrate that something worked very well for those flowers this year.
     Ingrid (3rd grade) came home from a three-day overnight on Friday and was so excited about her time in the woods, she wanted to do something else on Saturday, our day this week together. So, we traveled to a favorite lake and loved our walk, seeing beautiful birds, sketching in our notebooks and hearing the concert they gave to us. I don't have a picture of Imogene (kindergarten) who went for one night last week. I celebrate the teachers willing to take their classes out into the wild, to show how wonderful it can be. 
     And finally, many of you know that my father was killed in action during World War II. I celebrate those in the military who keep us safe, today and long ago. The sacrifice of lives taken or years of service given is something we don't always think about, and this Memorial Day holiday is one that helps us remember. 
     It is the start of summer vacation for many of you. Wishing you one filled with rest and a slowing down of your lives so you can take time to celebrate the good things in each day.

Poetry Friday - found treasure

        All the Poetry Friday Links can be found at Tricia Stohr-Hunt's blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect. Thanks for hosting today at the last minute Tricia.

                    "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits."  Carl Sandburg

       I visited a favorite used bookstore last Saturday, and found a prize, an early collection of poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, 1986. The sales ticket left in the book is from Pittsburg, PA. The cost was $4.00. I paid more for it used! While I have nearly all of Naomi Nye's children's poetry anthologies, I haven't read very many of her adult poems, mostly when others share. This particular book is her third, and reviews say it shows a more mature poet, one examining themes of loss, particularly in her growing concern for middle east problems. 
      Interestingly, one of the poems that touched me is titled Jerusalem, but when I searched for it online, I found another poem with the same title. 

The poem in this book begins:

    Two girls danced, red flames winding.
     I offered my shoes to the gypsies,
     threw back my head and yelled.