A Mid-Winter Ode to New York's Indie Bookstores
Dreaded dark winter days seize my words unwritten,
Wit flurried, fancy frozen, and whimsy frostbitten.
Like a Mini ’tween snow mounds, my pencil is stuck
Alas! A once-fiery muse ’tis naught but slushy muck!
Forsaken, into the cursed, dim evening I trudge
With a plodding that slackens through ankle-deep sludge.
Half-frozen, wholly bitter, I slump against a door.
What’s this? Sweet Lord in heaven! It’s my local bookstore!
Hark, Greenlight! Hark, BookCourt!
O, McNally Jackson and Strand!
Thank ye, WORD and St. Mark’s!
Could you ever understand?
Miraculous P.S.! And Powerhouse!
Housing Works with cozy nooks!
All that you give me, how you revive me,
With your plentiful stacks of books!
Now inside, I must look feral, savage, and crazed,
For a book-clerk shields the till, with pierced eyebrows raised.
Still I grab the closest hardcover and inhale its sweet spine,
Then look ’round, and nod sheepishly, to prove that I’m fine.
But scattered amongst me I find plenty others,
Hipsters, Suits, Tweens, Europeans, and Fine Brothers,
All gathered, meditating, in the Printed Word Zen,
On this mid-Winter evening, we become Humans again.
O, Indie! O, Indie! My heart beats for thee!
One day, I will purchase your full inventory.
O, tiny, beloved bookstore, no bounds doth my love know!
As I thaw in your coziest corner, and the words begin to flow.
(c) Micah Hales 3/12/15