Ronna Leon Poetry
Poetry
SIMPLE QUESTION
"Where are you off to?"
The library.
How often I make that reply,
an answer easier
than explaining
I'm off to find adventure, mystery, explanations, stories,
answers, QUESTIONS, distraction, solace, advice.
I need hard facts, fantasy, history, science and art.
I want to learn brush painting.
I've a desire to housebreak my cat.
At my library I can meet both the living and the dead,
In a quiet place, where no one questions what I'm doing
lurking among their carefully crafted pages.
Oh, I'm off to the library, you bet.
I'm off to the library, and yes, I can bring
you back a couple of books.
"Anything in particular?"
Ronna Leon, Benicia Poet Laureate 2010-2012
100 years of Library Services Celebration
Benicia Public Library, August 2010
NEWSPAPER
I hear the thwack that signals its arrival
On my Driveway.
I do not rise. Do not hurry, as is my habit,
To spread wide the soft pages like a proud bird
Upon my table.
Do not make the dark coffee that usually flavors
The mysteries of important events.
I lie in the morning cool
And listen to birds squabble in the
Full blooming trees.
I collect the sounds of window opening,
Dripping faucet, humming refrigerator, husband snores.
I picture the newspaper waiting there,
Warming, browning, finally crisping, fading
In the righteous sun, unread.
I tell myself this news is already dead,
The common history we muck through,
Somehow.
I do not want their news, their lives, their grief,
Crushing my fragile spring morning.
When my husband leaves for work, he takes the paper
With him.
He asks, as he leans down to get it.
"You don't mind?"
No. No, I do not mind.