Library Renaissance

I think I'm finally grown up enough to get my library books returned in the same calender year they were checked out ... hopefully, even on time. So I've been exploring the big Bellevue Regional library, which is not brand new but fairly new to me. I grew up in the old Bellevue library which is now the headquarters for the Bellevue Police Department ... go figure. The new building is two stories, with lots of computers, wireless access, self-checkout, etc. Some of these things are good. Being able to search the whole collection online and put any book on hold is great ... they send you an email when it shows up at your requested branch, and you just go in and pick it up off the hold shelf. Almost too easy. There's lots of light, wood, and concrete ... the upper story light fixtures are shaped like upside-down urns, spilling light. The carpet is patterned in overlapping concentric circles, just like rain on water ... very Northwest-appropriate.

The haul today was:

"Luck Is Luck", Lucia Perillo
"Animal Soul", Bob Hicok
"Plus Shipping", Bob Hicok
"The Profile Makers", Linda Bierds

Traffic was so appalling on the way home (even the used-to-be-little-known back way) that I was creeping forward with "Plus Shipping" propped up on my steering wheel, the page trembling a bit in time with my decrepit old Saturn engine. (Disclaimer: reading + driving = bad idea. I know.) Even with my attention thusly divided, and only getting halfway through the first poem, I came upon an image that makes me wonder why I even bother. You know, exactly something I wish I'd written ... that made me wonder why I hadn't, or couldn't. I'm assuming this happens to everyone ...

I've been getting weird phrases which are meant to be parts of poems in my dreams lately. This last week, "deconstructed pocketknife" and "lithium snowmen".