The Little Red Book Poem by bryan wallace

You sit before me on the table -
A very old friend though battle-scarred.
Your spine is cracked, your corners scuffed,
Your pages old, yellowed, decayed and creased
As your corners got turned down for bookmarks.
Old ink stains and few small rips and tears -
You're hardly a thing of beauty any more -
The first flush of youth passed many moons ago.
Yet the signs still exist of your former glory
Though only if you look. The gilt edged writing
Bearing your title now faint though visible still -
"TREASURE ISLAND" by Robert Lewis Stephenson -
Proudly proclaimed on your front cover.

Then repeated inside in beautiful decorative font
With the printer's name in smaller letters beneath.
The prize ticket from Donaghmore Sunday School -
Still pasted fast to the inside front cover,
Bearing my father's name in hand-written Italics -
"First prize for Sunday School Attendance" in 1959.
Passed down from father to son - I clearly had added
My own name in Bic Biro in less decorative hieroglyphics.
You are the first proper book that I remember reading -
You transported me to far-away sun-blessed islands.
Long-John Silver with his wooden crutch and leg -
He stomped and echoed through all my worst nightmares
With his parrot perched on his shoulder squawking
"Pieces of Eight" or "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest."
Thoughts of sailing the seven seas on a galleon's deck
Or finding long lost buried treasure filled my dreams.

I idly turn the page -
"I remember it as if it were yesterday" it begins.
Thank you young Jim Hawkins, I remember it well.
I may read it once again - just to make sure.