A green lamp in the art gallery reminded me of my time at the NY Public Libary.
I taped up a fish-line-strung snowflake
to the library-looking green downward lamp
because it’s still January.
The hardest part was getting
the tape dispenser to cut off the sticky strip.
When I look at the frosted snowflake,
some sharp glitter inviting and rejecting,
attached to the light’s brass bar
holding up the Kelly-green awning,
I think of New York’s public library.
Yes, the one with the lions out front,
where I worked in the basement,
Google scanning all the books,
ours mostly 19th Century romance novels
with a sprinkling of Keats, Byron
and Roman and Greek writers
like Cicero and Homer.
I found each book’s reference in the computer
according to name, publisher, edition, and page number,
some so close it was hard to tell any difference.
Then I barcoded them with a sticky rectangle,
clicking the red siren clicker light
to attach the number string to the record.
After doing this dozens of times,
I pushed a cart-full up the Egyptian pyramid building ramp,
then transferred them onto
these top-heavy, plywood-on-skate-wheeled bookshelves
with belts to hold them in place cinched tight:
the encyclopedia-sized volumes at the bottom
and the tiny paperbacks on the top;
yet they still threatened to and actually did
fall over almost on us, but we ducked out of the way,
letting them swap-lean against the pillars of the first floor.
To the trucks every month and back
from the trucks in the middle of that same month,
we risked our lives.
But fond memories, oh so fond,
listening to my Bowie-radio on Pandora,
a mere 5-years after 9-11 in an old quarry.
And I had no fear like the long-timers
when a baseball player crashed his plane
into a brick building.
An accident, but it was no accident I found a home there.
The verdant, brass lamp is home.
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enjoyed the read! Interesting, holds reader interest
Never stop writing!!
m
I always tried to stay out of libraries as much as possible although one time I had my office in the library at Marshall University in the basement. It was just a cubbyhole, a graduate student carrel, but it was private (other professors had to share offices) and envied by some of my colleagues. I recall looking up information on microfiche and making many Xerox copies, usually at coin-operated machines. Google makes it so much easier.
I have seen those green reading lamps in libraries. I never read anything under them.
Ron