Advent Calendar day 14

Through window number 14 is a beautifully formed sonnet to delight all book lovers, by Lynne Rees.

Sonnet for The Book
Shall I compare you to a Kindle Fire?
You are more sensual: a tickle of pages,
the scent of a story captured in ink; you aspire
to intimacy like a lover who gauges
affection by patience not speed, by memories
of a palm pressed against a spine, not RAM
or dual core, or gigabytes or wire free.

Your heritage is animal – silk, vellum,
joints, head and tail. You breathe the air
we breathe; your margins bleed if badly cut.
You fade and crease, sometimes beyond repair,
but still we treasure you, each bump and dent,

your age, and how you gather dust and mark
the chapters of our lives. You nourish us.


Lynne Rees