pause, ponder, do my part, fill every bag
with fiction, magazines, and picture books,
all destined for my Amish patrons, when
at their farmhouses, bags in hand, I will light
to visit Kinder, Frauen for a while.
Anticipation rises in me while
I check out and bag each book, load, and cart
them to my waiting car. They are not light--
these canvas sacks hold more than words. Each bag
contains a glimpse of the wide-spread world. When
I go to their doors, Kinder grab their books.
They danke me and run off with the books
clasped firmly in chubby fists, run off while
with Mutter I chat (gardens, quilts, jams), when
“Ach, look!” says Bruder, not at horse nor cart--
my auto runs away down the drive! Bag
hits the grass. I’m on the run, footfalls light
and fleet, though not enough; car comes to light
amid a web of barbed wire. All the books
are unmixed--I see to that bag by bag.
My patron friends, eyebrows up, watch me while
around the car I crawl, snip, collect, cart
away the snare. With mirror broken when
it swiped a fence post, scattered scratches when
it lunged the wire, a crack in the tail light,
my car is a sad sight. “A horse and cart
may thus so go astray, as do the books
the Kinder take to the fields,” they say. I while
away the time, not anxious yet to bag
the trophy at the library for bag-
to-back route accidents. For surely when
co-worker friends hear this, they’ll laugh a while.
But I about the mishap will make light,
for their world is made larger by these books.
Through library doors I trail my red cart;
each bag holds books consumed by minds alight,
and when time, I will once again choose books
that might beguile mind, wile heart, from my cart.
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