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