A HOUSEFULL OF BOOKS
When you reach a certain age,
Most likely
You can look around you and see,
The many things
You have acquired
Over the decades;
Some, surely,
Remnants of childhood,
Photographs and
A little dress
Your grandmother crocheted for you
And you wore it,
Until you were almost seven years old,
While many things from your childhood,
Such as the dollhouse and your dolls,
Were lost along the way,
Most given away by your mother
Who considered it her prerogative
To do as she wished
With your things
So that many of your belongings
And those of your brothers and sisters
Were given away or burned,
In one of her bonfires;
It appeared that none of it was ever
Really yours,
So that as you grew up and older,
And moved far from home,
You began to acquire things—
Many things,
Things you could keep or give away,
Because they were yours and yours alone.
And somehow because books were what
You treasured most,
Books began to fill your life
Lining the walls of your home
And every nook and cranny;
Oh, yes, there were other things
That took up space—
Cookie jars and recipe boxes and rolling pins,
And cookie cutters,
Lighthouses and figurines,
Salt and pepper shakers,
And cabbage patch dolls,
And dollhouses—not one dollhouse
But half a dozen doll houses;
You recognize that you are replacing
All the lost things of your childhood
But are unable to stop the collecting,
Especially the collecting of books
until you have more books
than some libraries—
but wait!
Your mother didn’t give your books away;
You did that yourself.
So how do you explain
Being a book collector?
I must have been a librarian
In a former life,
You say
And shrug.
What does it matter?
DEDICATED TO BOB, WHO BUILT THE GARAGE LIBRARY FOR ME
–Sandra Lee Smith
