Ritual Sunday Poem by Val Morehouse

….“We hoped to gently persuade you book-review lovers to head online
in search of our missing Book Review page…” The Contra Costa Times.
On morning’s sweet dew they come stealing
like lovers into my bedroom to plead their stories.

Recumbent among pillows and comfort I savor one then another,
eyes steaming awake to black coffee sipped before the ink of intent.
Now between sheets, propped up, wild-haired in dishabille
with senses open I consider their meaning.
.
“Ah! ” a bouquet of words suavely offered by an admirer,
or, in sadness this, a refugee weeps of history lost, but wisdom gained.
Here tempts one, exotic as a dreaming orchid inside a glass box.
Or consider this modest nosegay, gleaned from flowery fields of memory.

Under plain cover stands another stalwart upright and earnest as a
scientist bent on the discovery of purpose in possibility.
Over there, a salty conqueror’s tale turns into imagination’s wind
to swash and ravish before an inevitable “The End.”
Dedication to denouement, I converse with each Sunday’s paper cast
of reviews crackling to light in my mind’s heat like kindling.