The borrowed book

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them

Walt Whitman

These lines occurred to me at some point during the last full moon, which was called a Blue Moon. It was a calm, sensual—rather than creative—moon. Submerged thoughts, some not even whole, surfaced slowly; they wafted on the lazy night breeze and seemed unconcerned about meeting their mark.

One such half-thought brought to mind that I once had a copy of “Leaves of Grass”, which I had gleefully purchased at a second-hand bookshop, for good books were hard to come by back then in the backwater.

One evening, we were enjoying drinks at the home bar of my erstwhile brother-in-law, the banker. In our company was someone I am calling John, a visitor from a town 440 kilometres away, a client and golfing buddy of said brother-in-law.

I do not normally tout the fact that I love poetry in most kinds of bars. On this occasion, however, I did mention it since John asked what I liked to read. Much to my surprise, the visitor said he too liked poetry, in particular, that of Walt Whitman. I replied that I had recently acquired the aforementioned “Leaves of Grass” and was dipping into it from time to time.

John exclaimed that he would love to read that volume again and asked whether I would consider lending him my copy. He said that if I were reluctant to do so, he would understand since he lived so far away. He assured me that he would return the book when he visited next, in about four months’ time. Oh, and he would look after it in the intervening period. I fetched the book from the cottage on my brother-in-law’s property where I lived and handed it over to John.

About four months later, John returned to my brother-in-law’s home bar. He skipped over the initial polite chatter and dived straight into a profuse apology. He could not return my Walt Whitman book, because, you see, half his home—including my book on the coffee table next to his favourite armchair—had been engulfed in fire and burnt to the ground.

Apparently, the fire-resistant interleading door to the bedroom section of the house prevented him and his family from being harmed, and thank God for that. John did offer to replace my book. I said there was no need.

©2023 Allison Wright