Remember when we used to meet in bookshops?
We’d find the ones with vaulted ceilings,
Glass refrectories, light streaming …
They are still there those vast knowledge stores.
Hiding in plain sight.
Remember when it mattered which section you were standing in front of?
Naturalist, historian, esotericist, geographer, politician.
That was who you were in that moment;
A meeting of the minds.
Never alone in a bookshop.
Critics, educators, entertainers,
chroniclers, gurus, practioners
monks, jesters, professors and confessors.
They all hang out in bookshops.
When did you stop?
And let the light filled atriums
be replaced,
with the reflected blue glow of the knowledge box.
In years to come, I want to look up from my bed,
where I will die peacefully in my sleep, and
be surrounded by towers of books.
The architecture of my soul
laid out within those pages.
Books will last the ages.
Hold them close,
No it's not morose
to dream of dying within those tomes,
to live forever in the homes,
of those who have met in bookshops.
Remember when we used to meet in bookshops?
DN