Book Collecting

Remember me?
I haunted the local
library, reading
any book I could reach.

I would sit on a bench
in the park
across the avenue
and read my stack

of books and listen
to the birds sing.
One of the books
was a primer

on book collecting.
Fascinated,
I remembered
that the book shop

across the park
had a lovely set
of Mark Twain for $12.50.
We were poor—

it might as well
have been a million.
Still, I visited the shop
once or twice a week.

In February, as I walked
in the park, I found an envelope
with 18 one-dollar bills in it—
crisp as the day they

were minted.
There was no one around
and soon the set
of books was mine.

Were it not for that envelope
I would have missed out on a hobby
that has enthralled me
for nearly fifty years.