In the Library

Today I met a classmate in the Cape Coral library. I was reading my Frankenstein, and he came closer to say “hi”. He said he was writing. I asked what he was writing about. Oh only a poem, he said. “Only!” a poem… how modest!

I finished reading the first volume of my book. Before the library folk threw me out because they were closing, I thought of the elder couple I met as I entered the library a few hours earlier.
The women looked outside while her husband (I suppose the man was her husband) read a newspaper. Then he leaned against her and he fall asleep for about a half hour. They both were sleeping when I looked at them a second time. A beam of light illuminated their faces. It was a nice picture. I am sure Eugenia would take their photo.

I recalled that image and the image of my classmate walking toward me. My mind gave bloom to a parallel: the couple who was sleeping and my classmate saying “how’s going?” The first image, although powerful and tender itself, was crowded with a sense of loss, the second with a feel of presence and creation.

I wonder what the poem was about…