Books,
books,
books
stacked
everywhere, overwhelming
hardwood floors, defying
categories on newly white
bookshelves barely vertical
stilt-walkers reaching for the
ceiling.
Voices,
voices,
voices
echo
all around — my
father's and his
father's and my
husband's father's —
inviting us to walk the
pages of their passions:
steam railway engines and
medicine's early discoveries
(do cigarettes kill?) and
theological discourses and
Irish tales read with a lilt and
The Ancient Mariner destined for
tears mingled with our own
pages and our children's
pages (Redwall and Harry,
Aslan and Psammead) and
outgrown favourites saved,
interweaving with grand-
children unborn and
those beyond.