For Professor P. Shaw

As a lover of good stories who has failed to read many good books, I pass on this poem from the Writer's Almanac:

Once Again I Fail to Read an Important Novel

by George Bilgere

FRIDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER, 2006
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Poem: "Once Again I Fail to Read an Important Novel" by George Bilgere from Haywire. © Utah State University Press. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Once Again I Fail to Read an Important Novel

Instead, we sit together beside the fountain,
the important novel and I.

We are having coffee together
in that quiet first hour of the morning,
respecting each other's silences
in the shadow of an important old building
in this small but significant European city.

All the characters can relax.
I'm giving them the day off.
For once they can forget about their problems—
desire, betrayal, the fatal denouement—
and just sit peacefully beside me.

In the afternoon,
at lunch near the cathedral,
and in the evening, after my lonely,
historical walk along the promenade,

the men and women, the children
and even the dogs
in the important, complicated novel
have nothing to fear from me.

We will sit quietly at the table
with a glass of cool red wine
and listen to the pigeons
questioning each other in the ancient corridors.