Grass Roots Books and Music

The University Book Store, of Seattle Washington, invited 110 authors, poets, and graphic novelists to contribute 110 words each in honor of the bookstore's 110th anniversary (Sunday, January 10th). These pieces have been compiled into a book called 110/110. Today, we recieved an email with an excerpt from the 110/110 collection...

This poem is written by Molly Gloss, who lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Her most recent novel is "The Hearts of Horses."

What We Will Do On Our Last Day

We'll gather at a table, all of us,
a table laid with fragile china plates,
old silver handed down on someone's wedding day,
yellow iris in a painted vase
brought back from Mexico or France.
There will be summer salad,
tomatoes warm from someone's garden,
ice cream we've cranked by hand.
We'll raise a glass to friends already gone,
speak of books we ought to have read twice,
say again the poems that bespoke our lives.
And as the dusk begins to deepen,
the candles stuttering in their cups of beveled glass,
we'll lean in to one another, our shoulders touching,
and none of us will face the dark alone.

For another wonderful poem, visit The Writer's Almanac and look up today's date in the archives to read Julie Cadwallader-Staub's poem, "Guinea Pig."