Readers Exchange

Just when you think you’ve heard it all

…someone writes another version of that classic holiday poem.

This one celebrates downtown Round Rock (don’t forget Christmas Family Night on Dec. 6) and Rocksssanne, the library’s beloved (and intrepid) snake mascot.

*** Rocksssanne’s Christmas Eve Ramble ***

‘Tis the night before Christmas, and Round Rock is silent,   Golden glitter
Especially downtown–no parked cars, no clients
Main Street is dormant, no citizens stirring,
‘Til dawn on that holiday fondly recurring.

With offices, cafes, and ArtSpace all drowsing,
The library’s not even open for browsing.
(Though our online resources you always can use
Any day, any hour, to inform and amuse.)

The staff is all home in their festive abodes,
Slumbering on, gifts already bestowed.
For Santa made Round Rock his first stop this year.
He’s checked twice, delivered, and then disappeared.

Folks won’t, ‘til the dawning light, rise and exclaim
Over Santa’s largesse–books, gadgets, and games.
And back at the library, gladly detected,
Is the strange stash of goodies that one soul expected.

Rockssssanne, the library snake, wakes to find
The tastiest tidbits to which she’s inclined.
Suffice it to say they’re for snakes apropos
But we won’t elaborate–you don’t want to know!

The tower of treats, brightly gift-wrapped and stacked
Reached so high that it caused the cage top to unlatch
Rocksssanne slithers out, leaves her trove unattended
To pursue an adventure she’s oft comprehended.

For once–just this once–she can finally explore
The joys of the top floor unknown heretofore.
Though she cherishes kids and her comfy confinement,
Rocksssanne yearns for novel new views and refinement.

Her journey is trickier than she’d supposed,
With obstacles previously undisclosed:
The stairs are so tall–and someone spilled glitter
That sticks to her skin.  But she isn’t a quitter.

She propels herself upward, so flush with ambition
The staircase becomes just a blurred apparition.
As she glimpses the stations where patrons compute,
To Rocksssanne, they symbolize forbidden fruit.

Pausing just on the brink of the second-floor landing,
Reptilian intellect quickly expanding,
Rocksssanne spies the shelves and the tall reference desk–
But then hears a sound both aghast and grotesque.

“EEEEEyikes!” cries Michelle, who’s come to retrieve
A gift she had purchased and not meant to leave.
She’s startled to find both the open snake coop
And, all up the stairs, golden glittering swoops.

“I’m busted!” thinks poor Rocksssanne, hastening home
Already regretting her whimsical roam.
She’d never envisioned a scary invasion
Just a brief promenade on this merry occasion.

The library director gives her a grin
And pats the cage lid, now the python’s within.
“No harm done,” she says, “All that great information
Is meant to lure minds out of dull hibernation.”

Keying in the alarm code, she stops to express,
“I admire your example, I freely confess.
For folks here in Round Rock–kids, grownups, and ‘tweens–
Let’s all seek discoveries in 2014!”

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