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'''The First Forty Days: Life At the Occupy Vancouver Camp
'''
 The library sprung from the 
                loins of one mythical beast by the name of Iain. What popped 
 out 
    were some course readings 
 and a table.  

 (And at one point there wasn't 
 even a table. 
              Just a sign
 saying "Education Station"
 because nobody could have expected what Our Community did next!)

 And Iain asked people to bring their own books and course readings
 and sit with him
                and convince people to read them.

 But that was an utter failure.
 Instead people started bringing books
                                      and Iain immediately
                                         relented
                          and accepted the mantle

                         Suddenly 
 other, less 
                    ethereal 
             beasts 
 seeing the library
      ran home, and
                     collected
 treasured books
 and unwanted bookshelves

 and they brought themselves
 for a minute 
 or an hour
 after work or school
 and we tried to fill a twelve hour day
 and before long
 the library was occupied 
 24 hours a day 
               or more

 The space
 grew roots
 and familiar burls:
  chairs, 
 even a green leather sofa (imagine the labour);
                          and branches
                   like Renee
 and the Positivi-Teahouse 
 next door

  and then there was a whole onslaught of minutiae and gewgaws, like a croquetion station 

 and some knitting needles, 
 a wooden horse and 
 materials for 
 producing 
 masterpieces 
     of 
     art 
         and literary persuasions 
         (persuasive they were 
 too; to embed political thought into the 

 people 

 that wandered in 
 and pondered over 
 them).

 It was two weeks before 
 we heard that the same 
 thing 
 happened 
 in New York, and a month before we realized 

 we were part of a global phenomenon. 

 At the onset, it was a place 
   that shut down 
 for 
    the evenings, 
 until some of the 
                   nighthawks began to 
 occupy the wee hours, 
 until 3, or 4,
                filling the night air with debate
 and conversation

 (as Goethe said, “Night 
                is the other half of life, 
    and the better half.”) 

 There were intense 
 drunken chess duels 
                     at two in the morning, 

          there were impassioned 
 poetry recitals as the feet 
                            of the sleeping 
        lumps on the couch 
 stirred,  

 there were debates 
   over whether or not donated 
        Ayn Rand books should be 
    tossed in the trash; 
 they ended up 
           under the new section "Know Thy Enemy" 
 along with a book by Bill Gates and 
                  works of the mendacious Milton Friedman.

                       During the day the library 
                            was a place of 
         cramped communion, 
            it was
                a place 
                   where 
                  people 
                     happened.

 They came to get educated, or to educate
 and the best came to do both
 because they got it. 

 For initially the name by which the 
                    library went by was 
     'The Education Station', 
 but was, a few
      weeks into the camp, renamed 'The 
                   People's Lovely Library' after 

 some bum at 4 in the morning, 
 with cold fingers and 
                   coffee 
                   trembles 
 decided to paint 

 a pretty sign.

 Sometimes I wonder,
 of all of the Librarians who once
 called The Library "theirs" 
 if just for a few hours and then never again--

 I wonder if any of us ever
 said
 "thank
 you."