A Comfortable Host

   A Comfortable Host 

Horizons meld hills for eyes to climb ,
Far distance blurs their sharp images ,
Also , does the real passage of time .
Nineteen twenty one (1921) , vestiges

Long gone : trolleys and their rust weary rails ,
Rutted cobblestones , worn down brick ,
Etchings of wagon wheels mark their trails .
Four score years grows memories thick .

The Century Club chose Potts's High Street
Casselberry House for it's beginning .
Forty years there , double it ,repeat
Forty years while still remembering :

The smell of linseed from shoe hardened old wood
That squeaked and groaned with each foot step .
Dappled sun light peeking in where tall windows stood .
"Shhh ! Be quiet, please !" Rules strictly kept .

When words emerge from their book covers :
Distance alters and time accepts change ,
Dreams seek children , their fathers and mothers ,
Stories flow rivers , climb mountains , ride range .

Facts flow from open pages into the mind
And swells clear, deep streams of knowledge .
Wonder grows wisdom we all may find ,
Cause reading hones that sharpened edge .

Libraries draw horizons close ,
Time finds them a comfortable host .

   Ronald C . Downie 

Written for the occasion and read to the assembled commemorating  the eightieth anniversary of the founding of The Pottstown Public Library .(2001) 
 
A symbol of a maturing town was a library being sited there which happened here in Pottstown in 1921.It is still a major player in the town, even though, cyberspace surrounds us.