i found myself eyeballing the books used as filler in dept. store displays today

the store specialized in containers

stuff to buy when you need to organize the abundance of your stuff

the books in these containers were quite good, including a collection of poems in draft facsimiles by john keats

i wondered who picked the books for these displays could it be a person with an advanced degree in the humanities even an mfa who took a job in corporate u.s.a. whose compromise with capitalism is vouchsafed  by a selection of literary works to be used in store displays

or the selections of books could be quite by accident the books are remainders and so are cheap to buy

there was a floating remaindered bookseller back in the '90s

i would become a kid at christmas when i found one of these remaindered bookstores

i have no idea if books are valued or devalued i do know people regular people ordinary people the kind like you and me do read and often a lot

the books at the store are certainly valued at least by me and i know many others

i don't worry about the fate of books and literacy in our present age i worry about our viability as a species

language survives its making so does books so does poetry

language will not survive us when we die so does language

until then we shall continue and record and express our amazement at being alive in these wild times