I was dusting the book-shelf.

Just moving this to there

and back again.

But somehow, when it comes to books

you can’t just move them.

Books are there to quietly detain,

and hands are there to handle

multi-coloured bindings,

magic pages

full of stories, poems, anecdotes

of lives, not ours - but vivid

dreams of distant ages.

I’m beside the Ganges;

I can smell spiced air -

a fantasy

that supersedes the duster,

radiates the ordinary day

with gentle literacy.

A piracy of the spirit

with a happy prisoner.