The Brooklyn Library

Putting the palm trees out on the back roof top, though the temperature might drop to 32 again this week. Even so, the mild rain and the sun will help revive them after a winter of heater air and dim window light. There are rain puddles on the roof. A few trucks pass on Coney Island Ave, but mostly it is a quiet day, like a sunday, soft and very quiet.
The rain here in Brooklyn is soft today, falling on the palm fronds that have been saddened by six months of winter light. Now spring is shaking its new tender head. Winter is giving in, receding like tide pulling back. Still it retains the right to blow cold in the coming nights ahead. It reserves the option to freeze the sprouts and shoots pushing their way through the dead leaves. On the back roof deck, the tunnel of wind usually knocks plastic jugs around and throws toys across the length of the roof. But today all is still.
This is April, Poetry Month. At the Brooklyn Library on Grand Army Plaza, which my granddaughter and I call Bozo Circle (because of the crazy drivers and the crazy light system), I hear an announcement for Poetry Month. This is Brooklyn's biggest library. There is a children's and young adults room, a giant magazines and videos room, a long multilingual room with computers, and huge vacant spaces to stand around or stand in line to check out your findings. If you want say, an older book, you must first find it on the computer, give it to the librarian at a desk, and she will order it for you from the basements below where they now keep all the books. No longer can you browse the libraries. "We don't have the room" they tell me. But most of the vast library space is empty...giant echoing spaces with three tiny desks against one wall where you may check out your videos or magazines. Oh I am not complaining. People probably don't remember when you went in the library to browse stacks.
"I would like to find some books by Shalom Aleichem," I said to the librarian.
"Spell it" she said. I spelled it wrong and she said, "We don't have any".
"But that's impossible" I said. "One of the most famous Jewish writers of the 20th century? He lived in the Bronx! He wrote Fiddler on the Roof, well sort of...He wrote the story they used for the musical."
It took a half an hour but she finally located Shalom Aleichem on her screen. "Which one do you want?" she asked.
"How many are there?" I answered.
"Lots" she said.
"Can you read me the titles?" I asked.
"I don't have time" she said. "I'll just order up 3 titles, all right?"
I agreed.
"Do you want Fiddler on the roof?" she asked.
"NO!" I said. "I mean, he didn't actually...well, no I don't want that one. Any others."
But the system was down and the librarian said she would not be able to contact the deep recesses of the basement to call up the books. "I can put you down for an order and you can return in a week and pick them up" she said.
"Are you KIDDING?" I asked.

When I am driving my granddaughter home from school I pretend the car is an airplane. "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are flying today in blue skies and a light drizzle... we will be approaching Bozo Circle in about ten minutes. Please be sure that your seat belts are securely fastened and your trays are in the upright position. Thank you." I say this with one hand cupped around my mouth like a loudspeaker and my granddaughter smiles from her car seat in the back. "Captain roll down the windows so we can hear the bozo's beeping!" my granddaughter calls out. We sail in to Grand Army Plaza where everything is circular and there are so many veins running out of it... Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park West and Union Street and Flatbush Avenue and Vanderbilt and a few that seem to have no name. If you are heading for Vanderbilt for instance, good luck and prayers to you. Fu is what you need. Fu in Chinese I think might be the word for great luck. Vanderbilt is one of the streets that is not accounted for in the traffic patterns and light systems of Bozo Circle. "Right lane for Vanderbilt", the sign says. But the right lane has giant busses in it, stopped and letting on passengers, so I go to the next right lane which is right middle. Now I am set up to sail straight and head down Flatbush. But I need to go right, so I do, when the light turns green and five cars behind me begin instantly beeping and shoving I race out and right. But now I am at a red light...is it MY red light or is it the row now behind you who are waiting while you have the green from the other street? I wonder this, but no time no time, I plunge on, there is another red light but it is not so much in front of me as beside above me... I plow on, almost like I am inventing the road, and yes, there is Vanderbilt up ahead on the right. Above my head glowing red video cameras are filming my car charging across the valley of Grand Army Plaza, alone, absolutely alone, while snorting vehicles wait in the circular pattern all around. I am alone in this endeavor because all other cars have gone the way of Flatbush and Eastern Parkway. Only my car has opted for Vanderbilt. It is not a popular choice here at Bozo Circle. In the backseat, my granddaughter listens to the beeping and sighs. "What bozo's" she says.

It is April, Poetry Month. At the Brooklyn Library they announce this over the loudspeaker. Most of the people today are lounging in the video magazine room. I have a stack of video's to check out. After all, they are visible and browsable! I would be getting books but there aren't any. Not really. I am not interested in brand new this year just published books. I like old books, from dead authors who think the way I think. These are hidden in the dark tunnels beneath the elegant entranceway. What is available are new best sellers, childrens books, magazines and DVD videos. But I am not complaining! I am grateful to Brooklyn Library. When I lived in the Bronx there weren't any books in their library at ALL. Only movies.
At the information desk I inquire about Poetry Month. "Which poets will be reading?" I ask. The man searches through the log but can find none. "There is a teen writing group on wednesdays," he tells me. He gives me the sheet on April and I leave.
Walt Whitman was born in Brooklyn. And after all, isn't New York the hub of the world? Shouldn't all the libraries here have readers and books first, and movies second? The new world squeaks with spring. It is wet and new and just born and ignorant. I consider calling the director of scheduling for the brooklyn library, but I have not so far. What can I offer? "You can sign up as a volunteer" the man at the information desk said, and he gave me a form to fill out. "Would you be willing to be a Welcome Ambassador? A computer coach? A shelf organizer?" the form queried.
I did get the wonderful books of Shalom Aleichem, but after that I found buying paperbacks online was easier than trying to get books from the library. At least you can look inside the books on Amazon before getting them. Still, it is a shame that people can't wander the stacks anymore sitting among obscure books and finding new treasures. If we cannot find our own Great Books, are we doomed to trust the best sellers lists? Who will ever read my own published books now that they are out of print and lost in the caves beneath libraries? Indeed, now that bookstores are hard to find and libraries carry mostly movies, who will love to read at all? And then how will one be able to describe or speak? How will we know spring if we have never heard,
Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen...