When I was just a yellow pup, ordering books from the Scholastic Book Service was always a big treat. I loved, and still love, buying books. It is an indulgence which nobody can fault. If you collect shoes (whistling innocently and looking up and away), people will find you self-indulgent and frivolous. Wasteful, even. If you have a fondness for more art supplies than you will ever be able to produce artwork from, again, you could be found guilty of avarice.



But nobody, ever, ever, looks askance at an addiction for books. Anyway. I digress.



One of my favorite Scholastic Books was "Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle" and it is an anthology of poetry.

I have loved so many of the poems in this book, for forty years or so now. And the other morning, when I saw this from the train platform, I was reminded of yet another poem from the book.







"Steam Shovel



The dinosaurs are not all dead

I saw one raise its iron head

To watch me walking down the road

Beyond our house today.

Its jaws were dripping with a load

Of earth and grass that it had cropped.

It must have heard me where I stopped.

Snorted white steam my way,

And stretched its long neck out to see,

And chewed, and grinned quite amiably.



Charles Malam"