Emma Whitehall

A Lifelong Love

I dream in paper,
Of ink and print.
Of Hallowed Halls
Stacked up to the rafters
With books beyond counting.
Where I could wander
Belle-like, forever
Sampling stories like a hummingbird.

A precocious child
Already a bookworm at three
I’d run, armed to the teeth
With tales of teddies and pancakes
From mother to granda
Auntie to grandma
“Read this one
And this one and this one.”

Older I grew
Raised on Penguin Classics
Poring over Bronte at twelve.
Bashfully clasping
As I ran from the library
My special-order
Copy of Dracula.
From such small beginnings…

Now I am grown.
Shyly offering my own words
Wrapped in their very first binding.
Hearing stories of fund cuts and
Hallowed Halls closing.
And children who know
How to tap, swipe and click
Before their first-read words escape their lips.

What world is this
To send fledgling work into
Where imagination and reading
Is just time-consuming?
I shudder to think
Of how Lovecraft and Wilde
And Stephanie Myer
All look the same from the light of a screen.

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