In the Rosenberg Public Library, Galveston, Texas

Suzanne Morris

April 21, 2024

Sh...quiet, please....

Up the winding stairs I would go,

every Tuesday and Thursday,

into the hallowed reaches of

the Archives department

the Gulf of Mexico lapping at the

sandy beach a few blocks away.

For hours I would pore over the

huge broadsheets of the century-old

Galveston Daily News

turning each yellowed, brittle page

ever so tenderly, feeling as if

the preservation of the city’s storied past

had been entrusted to my hands:

the infamous storm of 1900 that

took more than six thousand lives

the private dramas that unfolded

behind the shuttered windows

of opulent homes rising from

the center of the island, flanked by

giant swaying oleanders

with their intoxicating scent.

This was in the days before

cave-like microfilm readers

crowned by celluloid spools

confronted those on a quest

to learn details that

many had long forgotten

and some had never known.

Even more remote, the future

of digitization that would

consign to the shelves of

distant memory

the musty smell

of the old diary

that would suddenly materialize

in the hand of the Archivist– 

the only other person in the world

privy to the secret that 

you were writing a novel,

your first– 

paused at your shoulder,

confiding discreetly,

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Suzanne Morris’ first novel, GALVESTON, was published  by Doubleday & Company in 1976.  She continued writing and publishing fiction for 40 years, before turning to writing poetry.  Her poems have appeared at TPA and other poetry journals.