The bookstore looms at the end of the street

Its cinderblock walls tower over those walking below

Hammered glass windows distort the view inside

No footprints venture near it in the fresh October snow

 

It’s stood there since my father was a boy

It survived the bombing of London in ‘41

Some say it was built by the Virgin Queen

A remnant of an empire undone

 

I shake my umbrella free of the snow

Heavenly dandruff floating down from a dove-grey cloud

I grip the knocker with a trembling glove

And thump on the solid oak door rather loud

 

The door swings open

From a small girl’s hand

A bell rings

Fairy wings

Prompting me to demand:

 

“Who owns this structure

Full of parchment and books?

And where should I start?

I haven’t a clue where to look!”

 

The girl replies, “See,

The answer’s fairly easy

This place belongs to you

Just as it does to me

And you start as they always have

With a stanza of rhyme

With a pen of ebony ink

And Once Upon a Time.”

 

She scurries to a shelf

And stretches her hand up high

Straining on tiptoe

To select a book in reply

 

Without another word

She tosses it into my arms

Exits the store

And leaves me to its charms

 

The book greets me with an expanse of white

It pages blank, with nary a word in sight

So on a flowery sofa I alight

Retrieve my pen

And begin to write

 

After hours of sitting in that cryptic room

I sign my name in large, loopy font

Close the cover of the volume I hold

And leave it lying on a table, nonchalant

 

Before I return to the world outside

I run my finger along the spines of those on the wall

Each containing the story of someone like me

With their name etched in black in a similar scrawl

 

The tales of their lives unfinished as yet

With triumphs and tragedies as varied as mine

I soak in the awesomeness of that single thought:

We all have been crafted by powers divine.