At the Sign of the Dragon

in memory of Marion Van Der Voort

Inside were dragons
of every color and size,
dragons who reasoned
and dealt in magic,
and interspersed among them:
a host of talking rabbits,
a blind space poet,
and all the true kings.

I found myself
inside the stories --
in the reading of them,
and in the friendship
of the couple
who owned the bookshop
(for it was a bookshop).

They led me, book by book,
through worlds I fell in love with.
So that when I lay outside,
reading on the grass
in the boundless summers
of my childhood,
I was not alone,
but part of their
fellowship of readers.

Inside were dragons.