I saw Elvis Presley in a library once

He was chewing gum

I don’t know what flavor it was, bubblegum maybe?

How many times I’ve gone back to that library

I haven’t counted

But I never saw Elvis there again

Instead, I found books about World War II

And one about how to make a tent out of nature’s gifts

I might use that information in the forest someday

Once in a while I go to the library just to breathe

It’s noisy in the world and I need quiet

Breathing in the silence makes me whole

There are so many subjects and so many writers

The pains authors  go through must be tremendous

All so we can sit with their words for awhile

A big, bright room filled with the smells of books

Mingling with the whiff of ages past

The library houses new beginnings for us

Maybe Elvis Presley needed a new beginning

Or maybe he was hiding from the noisy world

I guess Elvis and I had something in common

He might have been nothing but a hound dog

Crying all time

But one day I saw him in the library chewing gum