MARYLAND WEATHER

  

In the course of your visit

To our Hall of Records,

You will see that for the most part

Our Public Searchroom depends

Upon solar illumination.

 

In the course of a day,

There will be many changes

In its moods and your perceptions,

Like epiphenomena born

Of the ever-evolving brain.

 

But as they say here in Maryland

Concerning the weather,

“If you don’t like it, wait a minute,

And it will change.”

 

For instance, in the full sun

The three-story room seems youthful,

Full of possibilities--

Like Terrae Mariae herself,

In the days of old John Ogilby,

Whose map of the colony swelled to a mural

That leans over the mezzanine

Like an imperious, visiting Queen

Contemplating patrons

Too self-absorbed to notice her.

 

Suddenly, a cloud passes before the sun,

And Terrae Mariae recedes into the shadowy past.

 

The Searchroom grows smaller,

Gnarled out of shape like an old man

Who shuffles and complains

All the way from the indexes to the Reference Desk,

Clutching yellowed notebooks of illegible scrawl,

Hunchbacked with the burden of his ancestry,

Consciousness flickering

Like a guttering candle’s flame.

 

But if this apparition

Casts a pall upon your visit,

You will do well to remember

What we say about the weather.