Could there be anything more perfect than bookshelves full of books? Only being in a story that is crammed full, with all the nooks and crannies. One of the isles of the Ashland Book Exchange.
Good Wednesday morning allI! I was in Ashland, Oregon yesterday and while there I stopped in at The Book Exchange, a marvelous used bookstore, and one place I feel I must stop when I visit there. It doesn’t hurt that it’s kind of like a cave. I wish I would have taken pictures, but if anyone goes onto the website, you can see the interior. Or see the one picture above from their site.
While I didn’t find the second and third Outlander novels, nor Alice Through the Looking Glass, which was what I was hunting for, I did walk out with two other books I have been hunting for, for quite a while. A.A. Milne‘s “When We Were Young” and “Now We Are Six“; two marvelous little books of nonsense and children’s poetry. Though honestly, some of it is so relevant to being an adult since I can now understand some things I didn’t as a child.
They were especially fun to find as they fit with the prompt for Day 12 of PAD – write a silly poem or write a serious poem. I think honestly they are not quite silly, nor not quite serious, but kind of in between. So I hope you enjoy.
When We Were Young and Silly
I’m reading something silly in an A.A. Milne book
It’s rather sweet and charming with an old-fashioned look.
When we were young, but now we are six, is how it goes,
Those ages when life was simple and free as time flows.
Daisy teas and acorn cups, and rivers of milk and honey,
Of sandbox cakes so fancy, when time was warm and sunny.
The years were endless, time moving like a slippery snail,
Trudging through the months, waiting for Christmas without fail.
Now we are many more years than six could ever be,
I miss the simple and the silly in all the things I’d see.
And……
Bookstore Ghosts
The bookstore whispers in a somber note
of authors past and living ghosts.
Though the bustling of active sales
the quiet pervades each nook and fades.
A creaking floor alludes to others there
a turn shows there’s no one anywhere.
Each book calls you to touch and linger
to find those stories that are matches to tinder.
Burning you up with magic between pages;
how could black words on white make such changes?
Your life is not yours as you leave with ghosts,
Stacked up in tomes filled with dusty motes.
Ah, I think it turned out pretty good in the scope of things. I’m happy with it. And I was excited to be in Ashland, even if Mr. B was like one of the most impatient guys ever while I was in the bookstore. I could have easily spent an hour or three there.
Kate
Kate's Bookshelf 
MATCHES TO TINDER! Love it
I was so happy with that line too!