After The Book Fair Poem by Bill Grace

The school's book fair storm
Has come but not yet quite gone
A clever piece of marketing
It probably is not wrong
In helping undergird the spirit
That makes capitalism strong.

Yet for it physical location
The library seems strange
Libraries being the basis of so much insight
Into even things in a democracy that are not right.
They - libraries - are sacred to me
A great help in surviving
Years of so much reading
And so little money.

We must keep the world's book fairs
For books are good,
Sometimes they lead us to my particular should -
That it is not another possession on the shelf
That leads to our greatest good -
But the costly freedom that is inside covers
Granting us the wisdom to not have to buy and buy.
There can be a peace and center from materialism's menace
That ism as so many others failing to understand the human core
Raising to apostacy the Newtonian score.

Money is grand and book fairs fare
Great freedom and joy are inside those covers
Me thinks despite the societal apostacy
It is reading even more than money that makes us free
Helps us see the way that things should be
Both for ourselves and others.