"when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by itself
and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was."
A
later poem by the later Charles Bukowski. A poem about being a writer. Or a soldier. A bookseller.
Until you die or it dies in you. Adventurers, loggers, miners, maybe a few athletes and musicians. Especially poets, pushing the ink-drenched mass up the landscape only to have it roll back and blacken you into the background.
If you have been chosen, it will do it by itself. It is a shitty poem, mostly. But it is pure Bukowski, and eventually it hits a sweet spot. Do what you will do. Be good at it. Work at it. Get dirty. Either things will fall your way or they will not.
For three years we sold books. We built not one, but two great bookstores. First at 101 South Main and then under the same roof as the Easy Chair Coffee Shop. We got dirty. We worked at it. We were good at it. We did what we could do. Things did not fall our way.
So, we return to our roots.
