Books Falling From Heaven

Thank You Robert

The Two of Us, 1980

Years ago, I would posit, say 1980 or so Mary and I were wandering around Santa Monica, and discovered a new bookstore. I have forgotten the name of now (of course) but outside of the Bodhi Tree in West Hollywood, it was perhaps the only other bookstore at that point who catered to the Metaphysical crowd on the West Side of Los Angeles. It reminded me of Atlantis Bookshop in London (talking about memories!). Nice place, good atmosphere. Perhaps on Santa Monica Blvd as I remember.

We were perusing the stacks, wandering about on a Sunday afternoon in the Autumn, or what passes for such in Los Angeles. We lived about 3 miles away, and had walked from our place off of Bundy in West Los Angeles…

As we were checking out various books on Tarot etc, when all of a sudden a book fell from the upper shelf into my hands. Startling! We hadn’t bumped the bookshelf; it was as if the book had leapt.

It was a copy of Robert Grave’s “The White Goddess”. We started to thumb through it, and found this poem immediately: