In Memory of Lahaina Public Library, Maui

In Memory of

Lahaina Public Library, Maui

Mike Dillon

It turned the heart polite
to step through the main door
out of the bright bugle of sunlight
into a room of subdued light
filled with books
where faces don’t look up when you enter
and the middle-aged librarian’s
angelic smile is a north star
of welcome in the noonday hush.

The far door stood open to the breeze.
It framed the sky and ocean.
And hung there, a promise of egress.
You were a world away from Bede’s sparrow
in the mead hall, winging through one dark door
and out the other to inscribe a gelid metaphor
for our life’s journey. Here, a blue rectangle
blazed and beckoned from the opposite wall,
a lovely avatar of something.

---

Mike Dillon
Poet

Mike lives in Indianola, Washington, a small town on Puget Sound northwest of Seattle. His most recent book is a chapbook, Close Enough, from Finishing Line Press (2023).

Photography by Cole Keister