Thursday, July 9, 2020

The Spaciousness of Books (in the time of Covid)

Twenty-first century clutter traps me
fills my time and in a daze my days disappear
What with Facebook and Messenger and FaceTime, Twitter Email YouTube Wikipedia Blogs Podcasts Texting Internet Research and now due to Covid Zoom Gatherings and Facebook Events 
Twentieth century paper clutter is still around still abounds 
mail delivered daily: donation pleas, advertising come-ons
-- tossed out
magazines mailed monthly: AARP, Consumer Reports and more
-- kept in baskets
handouts printouts notes from classes, events, workshops, all on Zoom!
-- kept in files and piles (like my emails, maybe to read or to need later)


Yet in my house there are books
  on shelves
    on tables
      on night-stands

many old 
a few new

some purchased
-- before my library re-opened

now thankfully some from my library

some from friends
 -- cautiously carefully borrowed


Books with their solid feel
and their sometimes temporary status
I read them now
(unlike my Kindle long gone, its electronic books unread)


Books in the twenty-first century are
unique      a treat      rare

and when I curl up in a chair
  and hold a book
    and feel the paper
      and turn its pages

when I read and reread and mark parts I love
  with sticky notes or paperclips or highlighting
      or when I underline

my life is spacious and slow

in the old-fashioned twentieth century way



This poem published November 2018 at https://www.poetsandpatrons.net/
Revised Summer 2020 to reflect changes brought on by the Covid Sequester


2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Ellie. Books mean even more during the sequestor, and reading this summer in the hot humid days (with a fan blowing) reminds me summer days when I was a child, enjoying lots of time to read many books.

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