The Bookshop

Down some worn steps,
out of the light,
is a dusty cavern.

Lit by a few, bald bulbs and
smelling like the homes of old people.

There is no order
in the piles that gather
like someone who was preparing to move
and got disturbed.

Be prepared to spend some time
rooting.

Sit on the floor and carefully
dust off the cover and
hold it to the light.

The chaos is calming
as is the thought of where each
paperback once lived.

Who devoured the pages
with lusty abandon?
How many hours were spend savouring each word
on a chaise longue in the foetal position?

The search is as pleasurable
as the potential or reality of a rare find.

I select two
never more
or less
for I need enough
to carry me through a journey or a lunch hour or a Sunday afternoon
but with the prospect of another visit
sometime
very soon.

I leave with two treasures in my pocket.
I think of the moment
when I can open the cover and begin to read
in peace.

Free at last.

I smile.

It's that time again...Poem Friday #21

It was National Poetry Day on the 7th October and the theme was 'Home'.

Home

Home is where the hearth is,
Mostly metaphorically speaking
these days.

Home is when you see a light shining
in the distance from your window
on a dark night

and feel uplifted.

Home is when you have butterflies
in your stomach at the thought of it
after a long journey.

Home is a creation of your own
your things, your colours, your ideas
made real.

Home is when you can relax
and swoon unashamedly
on a beaten-up leather sofa.

Home is when you love
the small things and the great things in it
from nooks with potential to cavernous lofts
as hot as hell.

But home is more than a place,
than a colour, than a possession or two.

It is the sum of you and the people you love
in it
for visits or for keeps.

It's that time again... Poem Friday # 20

Ben Nevis

Uphill we tread,
A perfect line of primary colours marching upwards.

Mist hangs halfway in the sky, tiny droplets that soak the skin in a second.

Mountain lochs appear, at once inviting and then foreboding,
depending on the light.

Crushed velvet hillocks in the distance;
the softness draws you in.

Heads bowed, we snake ever upwards on the path,
following an invisible 'W'.

Some dream of the summit,
Some chat freely.
Some stay in the moment,
locked in a private battle of heart and mind and muscle.

We approach the top as a unit,
united in our mutual success.

For an instant we are adventurers and conquerors of the highest spot in our country.

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A party of 8 ascended Ben Nevis on Sunday 19th September. The weather was dreich with occasional breaks in the cloud. Ben Nevis is 4,408 ft (1,344m), the highest mountain in Britain.