A Librarian's Journey - 12/4/09

I watch you excited about your library
Passionate about the kids you serve
Seeking to connect with them

You begin your journey reading popular books
Why, because you want to know what they like to read
What motivates them to pick a book up

The cadres of the middle school years
Flooding back before you
Knights rescuing fair damsels

So many heroic stories
Then factual excursions lead onward
Replaced by adventures of times long ago

Then reaching towards times to come
Or times and places which never were
Yet both enrich our human needs

Quenching the unending thirst
Tapping into the richness of existence
With every book which is opened

Doing so reveals new opportunities
Readies you to help your students
Knowing where to best to guide them

A librarian's journey never ends.

Finally Snow - 12/16/09

Majestic maples in wintery repose
Glistening with frosty crystals
Slumbering branches so spindly
Snowfall blanketing the sky
Obscuring the marching sentinels of trees
Fading quickly up the street
Muffling the sounds of our city
Quiet coming to the bustle
Crunching footfalls
Firmly sink in a line along the walk
A lonely pattern meanders lazily
Crisscrossed by feline paws
Snowbanks yellowed by passing dogs
Breathing in the cold crisp air
A wayward snowflake's tingly cold sensation
Landing on an outstretched tongue
Staying for just a moment then melting
Becoming fast a memory....

Holiday Performance - 12/7/09

So hard to believe
Just six years ago
All of you standing so tall
Were once so young and small

Standing now, such joyful exhuberance
Singing songs of the season
Cheerful sounds usher in the darkness
The power of light so consuming

Slightly off key for sure
Quirky words unclear yet eyes gleam mischevious
Waving hands with sweeping motions
Bringing tears to older eyes

The present pageant unfolding amidst
Mixtures of memories past
Of diapers, first steps, the falls and oh the words
Scrambled together with off key singing

The miracle of life's cycles
So long ago we were on the same stage
With our parent's before us
Frightened and anxious we were

Enjoying the clapping and adulation
Goofiness of a holiday performance
The relief of almost being done
The last bow signaling anticipation

For Santa's plunge down the chimney
And the magic of the season.

Generations at Play - 7/31/10

Together in our living room
Boys playing magic the gathering
Faithful Scout sprawled on the floor
My wife reading in her favorite chair

Waning summer sun rosy on the horizon
Together we gather in relaxation
In anticipation for tomorrow
Tinkling sounds of music muted

Together we hum and tap our feet
We listen, play and read
Uplifting sounds transforming
Singing in unison so extraordinary

Together crafting our story
Just by passing the time.

A Whistle in the Night

Sitting in our bed with windows open
Sounds of crickets pulsating through
Sonourous frog calls echoing in the woods
Unceasing rhytym of the night

Barking dogs calling out
Screeching of brakes descending to a stop
Rumble of engines passing
Up and down Towne Hill Road

All of these surpassed every night at ten
Lonely clarion call of evening train
Echoing over verdant hills and valleys
Lately a less familiar sound

Once such a powerful force for change
Of country wide transformation
Today slips into the background
Fading out of daily life and story

While dull today this nightly sound pulsates
And powers our will to invent, to create
To transform our great nation
Reminding me of the power of innovation

Great ideas lie just around the bend
The embers of our collective genius awaits
Sounding every night through our window
Filling my heart with optimism

In giddy anticipation, wondering what will come.

Quotidian

Reading you old friend
Searching in you for old words, phrases and patterns
Anachronistic verbiage, amusing
Fallen out of usage, so unique

Somewhere in the letter R between Re and Ri
Eyes read through a definition, yet incomplete
Abruptly ending, no conclusion
Only to realize the words continue above
Lonely in the white space preceding

A moment realized, a typographer's trick
The need to condense, to abbreviate text
Packing in lines of words above and below
A quizzical moment passes
Recognition of an earlier time

Feeling the leading of the type
The art of composition unfolding
Conserving of paper and printing
No longer perplexed
My mind grows quiescent.

Dance Upstairs

Staring at your hand-painted letters
Your yellow arrow red and green strokes
Enframed in leopard wood
Voices and music emanate forth from various eras
Layering over one another
You used to point the way
To night time pleasures
Improving upon the fiery sounds
And terrors from earlier times

You started your life in a VFW hall
After your original dancers moved on
An unlikely school adopted you
Then after a while the school children left you
One day my muse found you
She picked you up

We gave you a new life
Using you one more night
Prominently displayed at our wedding reception
Now you've made the journey to Vermont
And grace our bedroom wall
I stare at you each night and day

Every once in a while the kitschy sounds of your past
Dean Martin's "That's Amore" ascending happily
Our song from the local pizzeria in Denver
From the Jukebox we played so many times
Wherever we go we'll take you
For the dance upstairs awaits.