The oldish woman sat on the dock in the chilling shade reading a book, alone, except for a lone paddler in an orange kayak on the wind rippled lake.
She purposely was sitting there to be by herself while she finished the last pages of a book that she didn’t want to end.
It ended.
She had a feeling of loss and sadness and wanted to go back a few minutes, still anticipating, savoring the last pages.
If the book embraces her spirit, she feels this way every time.
She doesn’t care who wrote it, or what it was about, just so it was good writing.
Beginning any book, she knows the possibility she will have her heart broken, but she tentatively opens the cover anyway.
Feeling unsettled, she looks up at the lake and sees the dark depths a few feet away and balks at transitioning back to reality. Any book is someone’s reality, not necessarily hers, but she doesn’t want to be in either. Maybe she will want the next book to be her reality. So on and so on, book after book.
During the first part of the Covid pandemic she happily kept busy with home projects, not reading as usual.
When Fall came, she drove to the newly opened library and chose some books by their covers.
She tentatively piled the books in the order she might want to read them.
Ah, safe again.
Angela Grace
Woodbury
This poem was written for the Verse-Village celebration of April Poetry Month.
