California Native Flowers

In this spring of 1968 with the last

third of the Twentieth Century

travelling like a dream toward its

end, it is time to plant books,

to pass them into the ground, so that

flowers and vegetables may grow

from these pages.

Squash

The time is right to mix sentences

with dirt and the sun

with punctuation and the rain with

verbs, and for worms to pass

through question marks, and the

stars to shine down on budding

nouns, and the dew to form on

paragraphs.

Lettuce

The only hope we have is our

children and the seeds we give them

and the gardens we plant together.

Shasta Daisy

I pray that in thirty-two years

passing that flowers and vegetables

will water the Twenty-First Cen-

tury with their voices telling that

they were once a book turned by

loving hands into life.

Sweet Alyssum Royal Carpet

I’ve delighted to live in a world where

books are changed into thousands

of gardens with children playing

in the gardens and learning the gen-

tle ways of green growing things.

Calendula

My friends worry and they tell me

about it. They talk of the world

ending, of darkness and disaster.

I always listen gently, and then

say: No, it’s not going to end. This

is only the beginning, as this book

is only a beginning.

Carrots

I think the spring of 1968 is a good

time to look into our blood and

see where our hearts are flowing

as these flowers and vegetables

will look into their hearts every day

and see the sun reflecting like a

great mirror their desire to live

and be beautiful.

Parsley

I thank the energy, the gods and the

theater of history that brought

us here to this very moment with

this book in our hands, calling

like the future down a green and

starry hall.

an excerpt from The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 (but published in 1970)

pg. 24

The 23

Ah, it feels so good to sit here in the darkness of these books. I’m not tired. This has been an average evening for books being brought in: with 23 finding their welcomed ways onto our shelves.

I wrote their titles and authors and a little about the receiving of each book down in the Library Contents Ledger. I think the first book came in around 6:30.

MY TRIKE by Chuck. The author was five years old and had a face that looked as if it had been struck by a tornado of freckles. There was no title on the book and no words inside, just pictures.

“What’s the name of your book?” I said.

The little boy opened the book and showed me the drawing of a tricycle. It looked more like a giraffe standing upside down in an elevator.

“That’s my trike,” he said.

“Beautiful,” I said. “And what’s your name?”

“That’s my trike.”

“Yes,” I said. “Very nice, but what’s your name?”

“Chuck.”

He reached the book up onto the desk and then headed for the door, saying, “I have to go now. My mother’s outside with my sister.”

I was going to tell him that he could put the book on any shelf he wanted to, but then he was gone in his small way.

inspired by richard’s ‘the scarlatti tilt’, dene grigar is publishing 1 micro story every hour for 24 hrs

you can get info about the project and watch it progress on twitter.

if i should die before you do

When
you wake up
from death,
you will find yourself
in my arms,
and
I will be
kissing you,
and
I
will be crying.

– richard brautigan

a great reading of ‘complicated banking problem’