Sifting

I pull books from shelves, novels, memoir, poetry, blow dust from tops that bristle with paper. Each marks your favorite passage. As I read, you surrender completely, eyes closed, chin lifted, ingesting each word.

But by night the stars themselves glimmered from the surface of the paddies, and the river of light whirled through the darkness underfoot as well as above. [David Abrams, Spell of the Sensuous]

We shared books the way some people share gossip, spooling out the latest find over an hour on the phone. Gemini, you confessed, I buy two of everything. A copy for me, a copy for you. In your shaky hand, you inscribed a quote to entice me into reading on.

I dream of January. Of dusk at four in the afternoon. Of the careful slow pace of below-zero living. I imagine I that I will wrap myself in winter: five months of gauzy light; the sweet stultification of the cold. [Mark Spragg, Where Rivers Change Direction]

I ease bookmarks, receipts, tissues, torn corners of envelopes, post-its, squares of toilet paper from between the pages. Passages you returned to, or intended to. Books whose presence defined your life. Books you no longer need.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

[Mary Oliver, The Summer Day]