Yesterday I wrapped up the morning class, so for a few weeks I'll have some free time in the mornings. I could have worked in the yard or finished the grading for that class, but I chose instead to finish reading the William Stafford book that I rediscovered Sunday while preparing for the fellowship program.

The Stafford book was among several other slender volumes that David H's widow gave me from his library after he died last spring -- March 22, I think. From his library I also received an Annie Dillard (Teaching a Stone to Talk), all of Jonathan Holden's poetry (some of which I already owned), as well as the work (both poetry and prose) of some other writers with whom I'm less familiar.

Most of the books are inscribed. Several of them contain a note from the author. All of them are dog-eared, and so far I've preserved the little triangles at the top corner that David had turned down to to mark his place. In a library book or in my own books, I would have fixed and flattened these. But these remain somehow David's books, so the dog-ears will remain as he left them, a physical record of his pauses and attention.

David was the only Pulitzer winner that I'm likely to know as a friend, or at least to know on a first-name basis. One Sunday morning at the fellowship I greeted him in passing in the parking lot by asking "Still just the one Pulitzer?"

"Still working on the next one," he replied, not missing a beat.

He was 69 at the time, and died a year later.

Anyway, after I finished reading the Stafford book early this morning, I realized that I was running low on books that I wanted to read. Oh, there's plenty to read on the web, but somehow books still enchant in a tactile way that electronic reading doesn't offer -- the dog-ears, for instance, notes penciled in the margin, or the size and heft of the book, and the knowledge in the case of library books or used books that not only other eyes but also other hands have passed over the pages. I suppose the notion of other hands having been laid on the pages might be unsettling for some, but I'm trying to keep this narration on the more-or-less wholesome side of a fetish.

One of the attractions of the books I had acquired from David's library was their size. Most of them were small, the size of a piece of typing paper folded once top to bottom, and thin, a little larger, for example, than a Strunk & White, the typical size in which volumes of poetry reach publication nowadays, easily digestible in a few hours, not requiring a commitment of a week or a weekend to read, and small enough that my mind can contain the book entire, at least briefly. So, running low on this size of book -- a curious criteria, wouldn't you say? -- I took a walk to the Dusty Bookshelf, our local seller of used books.

I haven't examined the connection too closely, but I have noticed that every bookstore like the Dusty is patrolled by cats, fat, pampered cats that don't venture far beyond the shop's doors. Today I stepped around the Dusty's two cats to return home with two books that fit into the pocket of my barncoat (the air was chilly this morning, under fifty degrees): a book of poems by Randall Jarrell (The Lost World), and some personal narrative by Amy Blackmarr (House of Steps: Finding the Path Home), who writes down the river near Lawrence.

Blackmarr's first book of essays, Going to Ground, received some good critical attention, but I never got through it. I think I came upon the book at the end of a period in which I had read many books similar to it, and my interest flagged when I hit hers. But I've breezed through this one with enough smiles and with enough recognition that isn't influenced merely by my familiarity with the region to take another look at her first book.

After typing straight through to this point, I have now sat here for about five minutes, wondering how to wrap this up. I've finally remembered that this is a journal, a writing form which I believe requires no conclusion but can be allowed to exist merely as a collation of recollections, impressions and opinions, words placed side by side like a weir in a stream to hold (or in the postmodern view, create) the reality of a good morning for just a few minutes. It's enough.

Driving home from class on Monday, I noticed that the highway memorial I had written about on January 25 was gone. I am curious to see if it reappears with new decorations. As of this evening, it has not.