Ode to the book, 2011

I sent the elec­tronic books into slum­ber,
closed up the lap­top.
I went down to the street,
wet and run­ning with slush from
yesterday’s snow and this winter’s ice limn­ing my jeans,
soak­ing my socks.
I should have worn rain­boots but once I was out,
I’d be damned if I was going to turn back.
The get­ting out, once accom­plished,
can’t be gainsaid.

The lit­tle cafe isn’t open on Mon­days
but the diner, the diner– it is.
The songs of short-order,
of sausage and Amer­i­can cheese,
griddle-fried Eng­lish muffins and the “hey, mans”
of bus and train dri­vers com­ing in from the sleet.
They order their usual, BLTs and corned beef hash
and always extra mayo, ketchup, hot sauce.
Var­i­ous condi­ments, spice of life.

It’s not always about organic bacon,
local-sourced chevre.
Some­times it’s puffy down jack­ets,
framed sports posters on walls,
formica coun­ters,
patois and pat­ter,
the fry cook telling the owner about how her daugh­ter,
“Oh my god, she’s so pre­cious,
she wanted a Shirley Tem­ple for her birth­day,
and I didn’t have grena­dine,
only cran­berry juice.  I’m glad she’s too young
to know bet­ter.”
And he laughs and pours her a cof­fee,
tips his base­ball cap, then lifts the chipped baby blue gate
and comes to pour me more joe.

The guys at the next table
are a dif­fer­ent kind of news feed,
I don’t have to click them to fol­low
what­ever they’re doing.
I learned about life from books,
wrote about it in note­books and net­books,
read more about it online and in line on what­ever paper was handy,
now click or swipe to the next page in my e-reader too.
I’ll devour what­ever type of story there is.
There’s always a new one to be told, too–
if first and some­times I remem­ber.
Close up the lap­top.
It’s okay to get your feet wet.

(Apolo­gies to Pablo Neruda.)

Unre­lated note: I do have things going on, they’re just kind of pri­vate and not to be blogged about, and also tak­ing up a lot of my atten­tion that might oth­er­wise be spent writ­ing here.  But things are okay.  Thank you to those who have asked.