An encounter with a poet

We had stopped at this spot to watch the waves for a minute when a man came up behind us.  He excused himself to get our attention then introduced himself as a local poet.  He was beta testing a poem, so to speak, before presenting it to the world at large.  Would we listen to it and tell him what we thought?

Nancy is not much of a people person, so I was going to brush him off when, to my surprise, she piped up and said we would.

He pulled out some folded sheets of paper.  My first thought was, how many sheets?  My second thought was, how small is the type?

He unfolded the paper and put the two pages in the proper order, adjusted his glasses, and began reading in a soft Russian accent.  The last line made me laugh which he took the wrong way, so I quickly reassured him that I though it quite good.  Nancy agreed and told him she particularly liked his delivery which put him at ease.

He asked where we were from and when we told him, he said that he had been to Alaska once many years ago and that as a young man he had read Jack London who was very popular with Russians.

Then, quite unexpectedly, he gave us his poem.

A moment later, I surprised him, and myself, by asking for permission to take his picture.

Rudolph Tenenbaum, Poet

Day 110
Monterey, CA

Daily Mileage:  0