graveyard

There’s a section in my library reserved for books from dead people. The books aren’t organized in any way other than they were once written by or belonged to people I knew who are no longer living. Some of the dead authors signed their books for me. Salutations and thanks for the support, one reads. Another: To the writing life—the only way. My favorite: When we die we will know what we meant.

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An aging railroad man forced his collection of books onto me because he couldn’t imagine it in his son’s possession: Decades-old leather-bound collections of European classics and obscure histories of the North American railroad. 

A poet shipped me old paperbacks from his library written by a dead writer we both admired. He told me he was “pruning all the things he’d gathered.” The poet died of illness shortly after. His collection included first editions of unheralded mystery novels from an unappreciated American master. 

A philosopher signed his books for me. He specialized in researching history and was an expert on the massacres of white settlers by American Indians. He was not an expert on the genocidal removal of American Indians by armies of white men. 

A young journalist and friend died suddenly and inexplicably. I often reread the work he signed for me. I reread all the books in my library’s graveyard. 

A pamphlet written by a dead musician and signed: Happy Birthday! He was my best friend despite our age difference of 40 years.

A multilingual poet who wrote about the beauty of fishing as superior to the poetry of words transfixed small crowds when reading his work in public.

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The books span different shapes and sizes, competing textures. They were once tucked into backpacks and luggage, boxed up and stacked as freight. Now they’re with me. Someday they’ll be elsewhere and all the books in my library will be in a different graveyard, or divided and spread to other interim or permanent stops. Or it will all be thrown to the fire and pissed on.