Great drama
Jim Barnes
"Skakespeare & Co." (from Paris Poems)
St. Julien le Pauvre stoops in shadows that lean
toward Notre Dame. The park grays in the rainy
twilight. Next door George Whitman's crumbling store
is the color of ashes and carded tomes thumbed
into oblivion. Two pigeons come
to the door, their bookish eyes red and sore
in the November rain. Humble they move aside,
as if we were masters here to provide
their daily bread. George stamps ~ground zero~
inside the Gertrude Stein we pay too dearly for
and offers us a room for the night or
the week if we wish it. We do not go
upstairs. The recent fire has left a thin smell of
smoke everywhere. We hear the rattle of
teaspoons and cups. Small talk of poetry
tumbles down the steep stairs and hides under the lower
shelves, duller than ash. Outside the rain pours.
The pigeons trundle dead weight under trees.
It is not the best of times, yet we hold old books
with a joy beyond belief: we will look
through volumes to find what we hold no more.
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