Book Party
On Friday nights people in Miami walk through iron gates and into acourtyard bordered by stucco walls and hanging green vines. They gather inclusters like stars glimmering in night skies. Wine fills glasses. Sweet chocolate floats on forks. Poets carve poems on sheets of loose-leaf, on parchment paper, in sketchpads. Single women toss words to one another –stories of the week -- lovers who’ve let them down, children who’ve grown away from them, work that bores them. Meanwhile, musicians strum gut-string guitars, pump the skin of bongos and rock dried gourds. Windowpanes frame people thumbing through books along walls where words pile up one on top of the other, and stories hang from ceilings or swirl beneath the feet of patrons. Inside, books come complete with authors who speak their stories. Professors hide behind stacks of books and tap on laptop keys, grade papers, nibble at cheese plates. Students mull through novels, break them into parts. Children flip colorful pages and sit on stuffed elephants. Mitch wanders from table to table – reading glasses draped halfway down his nose, hair wild with thought. He touches a shoulder, offers a warm smile,connects books to people.
-M. Evelina Galang, Author of One Tribe
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