Giving Away My Books Poem by Richard George

I hereby leave to Martin P.
My sellotaped-together Oxford texts.
Your admiration touched me:
Read them as I did.

Poetry: when those who print
Could still afford hard covers,
64 golden pages,
Willowy and strong.
For Jane.

And all those doorstop novels;
Serendipity-stripped
By the plausibility police.
Joe, you deserve better,
If gravity still earths you.

Mike, for whom words failed me
When I had the power... a library
On UFOs and Ouija boards
And unidentified wallaby slashers,
Must Collect.
Nothing amazes me, these days.

And last of all,
Jill, dear Jill,
My OS maps...
The eye of God, or an eagle.
I loved our hills, that April
In the Radnorshire monsoons,
Otter meeting otter.
But now I can't walk fifty yards
Without angina.