Of Making Books                              Be admonished: of making                            many books there is no end.                                          — ECCLESIASTES 12:12   For making books, you need to have a certain appetite, a certain longing — you need to look, to be quietly alert, not quite earthbound. It helps to have a few ideas, to be sure, and to know the rules, exceptions to the rules, movement of tides. So many books! But then, so many fools adrift without them, mapless. Darkness hides from light, muddle fights with meaning, illness sleeps with ignorance — it was ever thus, and so little time between reckonings, just love and books to shield us from the rough, mindless elements as we set out for adventures on sun-drenched seas.                                                for Fannie Safier     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont October 2013