Kathy Johnson: A favorite poem

Linda Pastan’s poem, “The Bookstall,” always makes me smile. It takes a seemingly simple mental task — choosing a couple of books from a library or bookstore — and describes it in delightfully physical and emotional images which absolutely ring true for me.

Kathy Johnson, 67
Retired teacher
San Jose

The Bookstall

Just looking at them
I grow greedy, as if they were
freshly baked loaves
waiting to be broken open–that one
and that–and I make my choice
in a mood of exalted luck,
browsing among them
like a cow in sweetest pasture.

For life is continuous
as long as they wait
to be read–these inked paths
opening into the future, page
after page, every book
its own receding horizon.
And I hold them, one in each hand,
a curious ballast weighting me
here to earth.

Linda Pastan