The Book Town Poem by David Harris

Through our lives we visit many places;
over twenty years ago I heard about
a village in Wales called Hey On Wye
often referred to as the book town.
Being a lover of books old and new
I went there and found
that almost every shop was a bookshop.
I spend hours and hours browsing
ending up with a number of hard to get books,
but when I came home
the name of the village escaped me.

Over twenty years on my wife and I
went on a magical mystery tour.
The last day of our holiday
we went on a half day excursion
and surprise, surprise when we arrived
I recognised the place as the book town.
Memories flooded back
as we strolled around the streets
exploring again shop after shop
browsing through the hundreds and hundreds of books
and my library gained a few more again.

31 July 2014