Book World

She escaped into the clockless land,
the world beyond the wardrobe,
beyond the very tip of the faraway tree,
nestled, tiny, in the heart of the wildflower.
She surfed the still sea of eternity,
surrounded by supernovas,
the black holes of infinity,
watchful and silent as a forever star,
living a thousand lives at once
as she turned the pages.

In here she was Billy, finding his bird dead,
broken and flightless, like him.
She was the brutality of mornings,
the klaxon call to school, to work,
the rattling of letterboxes and shouts of neighbours.
In here she was both epic and divine,
Ent-like and massive, her seven-league boots
bestriding the earth in a single step,
her aura glowing and pulsing from her fingers as she healed the world.

In here she was all things to all men,
a slayer of doubt and uncertainty,
her sword by her side.
Fierce, cruel, gentle, despotic, desirable,
a siren, a mother, a confidante, an equal,
beautiful and plain,
elfin and astonishingly old,
her mind her crucible
where the alchemy of words
made her immortal and unknowable.