Five and Dime Eulogy

The books were dispatched in cardboard boxes.
At the thrift store a man who smelled horrible
browsed them, homeless yet again, like the books
which had been sold by an aging group of siblings.
You could tell where the couple had spent most
of their time, up in Napa, on the road looking
for something. Will Durant had signed his last
major work, "Best Wishes. Will and Ariel."
Says alot. The Rand McNally most likely
meant for fifth grade students taking on
the West was a frivolous purchase I'll admit,
not the price but the size.
A French medical encyclopedia is terrible
and terribly grand. Reminded me of the science
lab (at Saint Patrick's) which was chock
full of pickled baby pigs and tapeworms
and of the Museum of Natural History in Paris
except...it is all right here, easily cartable.
Revolt in the Desert is worth about three hundred
and some of the best reading on the planet.
I am forever grateful to those two old codgers.
First rate folks.