old Friends like bookends

I spent the night next to my favourite books. Books that I had been slowly gathering since childhood. Most of them much older and dustier than I am. Books that had been tattered and torn long before they ever found me. Some are a hundred years old with slanting script indicating their first Christmas appearance for the delight of a young child, or an introduction by GK himself to the Bleakness of a House by Dickens. Many of the books still retain their colored dot that helped them find a home.
I couldn't sleep last night after I had climbed up on my bunk bed so close to the highest shelves on my wall. It's nice to find old friends that still keep me company when I can't sleep. Just reading the titles and feeling the shapes brought back floods of memories. I don't know if I could have handled the memory of smells had I ventured to open more of them.
Squeezed between Quotes of CS Lewis by Jerry Root, Homer's Odyssey, Jane Eyre, and Aurthur Miller's Essays I found a book that fit my mood. It was one of the younger books that I own. It's just a book of poetry by a singer/song writer. I reread almost the whole book. Skipping just a few poems.

Here are some of my favourite:

The Road

I have just
           caught a glimpse
of what my life
is to become
for a second I could see
       around the curve
and wondered where you were
your bright face
          no longer
beside the road
your hands
         no longer lending
themselves to familiarity

I saw Love
in the rear view mirror
with its red skirt
about its knees
       trying
to catch up
and before the curve
swallowed itself again
I remember
           thinking
There is all this love
but nowhere for it to grow
each second continually
devours the next
and we're moving too fast
for it to fasten
its roots
to the wind





I Guess What I Wanted Was

I guess what I
wanted was
to hear

you'd stay with me always.

I guess what I
wanted was
to see

those hands vowing
never to leave my own.

I guess what
I wanted was
to know


I am not loving in vain.






You Are Not

you are not
the brave soldier

Neruda's sons
Chave's brother

you are not
the dark horse
heart filled
with all the weight
and compassion
your hardships
have won you
you are not
driven by the need
to free all people
from meanness and
loveless abuse
        I know you
you are asleep in your church
on Sunday afternoon
looking for god
in answers you seek
through others
instead
of being the answers
you are praying for peace
but unwilling to be it

praying for mercy
but unwilling to give it

praying for Love
but too busy
making sure you got your own:
     a good job
     a good girl
all the trimmings you are
entitled to
all the bells and whistles
that are meaningful
but only to those who possess
a heart most common


~Jewel Kilcher~