For Kitty Fassett, Book Reader and Thinker

I bet he went to a library
when was he was young, when he could
probably segregated
perhaps in the schools he attended
in those days inadequate
but if you read everything there
you get an idea of life
how different, how importantly different
I wonder when he first read Ghandi,
Tolstoy
He carried on from the inadequate
to the 1,000 school Boston
so many, many books
Here in our little town Rockland, Maine, USA
it’s a lovely building, lovely staff
they can and will get books
from across the state, the country
for any demandingly 
inquisitive mind
a mind like a giant heart
to follow the truth to his death
which so saddens the peace warriors
who loan out the books of freedom

Kendall Merriam, at the Rockland (Maine) Public Library

January 15, 2016 2:45 p.m., Listening to murmurs of patrons and staff