mister

mister
i find you here
tucked quietly
into the reference section of the library
your yellow-gray beard
as yellow-gray as a page from Bartlett's menagerie
of proverbs and maxims

mister
i find you here
writing rapidly
composing fiercely
among the thesauruses of song and of rhyme
your blue-green plastic wrapper
the remains of a studious breakfast
spread out before you
like a wrinkled Caribbean sea

mister
i find you here
cloistered and detached
from the kids
who are here
finding themselves
who are here
sucking up cold air
who are here
reading trepidatiously
to avoid the heat

mister
i find you here
active in your retreat

mister
i find you here
your quill a black ballpoint
your scroll a slice of notebook paper
your blotter an old newspaper
your ideas a mystery to me

mister
what do you find here?
a history of the United States
transcribed from the minds of those around you
telepathically?
an ontological proof for God?
an appreciation for Russian fairy tales?
a solemn sabbatical from the world
as it is?

mister
what do you take from here?
what do you gather neatly onto that page?
what do you fold up
like golden fish in a market?
like silk spun from Malaysian spiders?
what words do you swaddle in your saffron-gold envelope?
a treatise? a poem? a manifesto?

mister
you found me here
you glanced up for a moment
fixed the silver-rimmed spectacles on me
before you turned ferociously back
to your masterpiece
we fixed each other on our pages
penned
like butterflies are
pinned