From an airport bar, I count the people reading

From the airport bar, I count the people reading: 1.

People drinking at the bar while watching tv: 14.

People drinking in the lounge while watching tv: 12.

The one person reading is a woman. She's reading a paperback. I think it's some kind of romance novel, she looks like a woman who reads romance novels, or perhaps she reads mysteries. I want to go up to her and give her a ceremonial dollar bill, say to her, "thank you for reading a book," but I don't.

The other 27 people not reading in the airport bar frequently consult their cell phones or laptops; most of these consultations are long enough in duration to constitute reading, I suppose.

There's no such thing as light reading; all reading is heavy reading. There is reading that's delightful; there's dutiful reading as well. Delightful reading is finding and reading the poem by Ruth Wiggins in the May edition of Poetry; dutiful reading is reading the small print on the United Airlines ticket stub that states United's policy re: checked bags.

Wiggin's poem "Making Water" is a fold-out, ala Playboy. (Does Playboy still do fold-outs? Is there still Playboy?) Her poem's a paean to peeing, from the feminine point of view. It's really exuberant, rollicking, a deeply playful poem that's actually about something; she more or less mythologizes a necesssary human activity. "And which child among us hasn't/cast their blessing on the waves? Sent into the surf by mothers, which of us/hasn't rightfully claimed the ocean as our own, or in turn been claimed?" I read Ruth's poem in five minutes, then read it again in under three, then sent her a note on my iPhone saying how much I dug it having read it twice.

Why don't more people read? Is reading not a necessary human activity, like peeing? And as long as you're reading, why not read something heavy that has the chance of also being delightful? 

ps: Ruth Wiggins has a blog, Mudpath. If I knew how to I'd insert the link.