The Green Storybook Poem by Martina Evans

For Fiona

Today, the first edition - 1947 - with fine cross -

hatched illustrations arrives from eBay,

in a cellophane-covered never-before-

seen dust wrapper. The apple-coloured

jacket was long gone by the time the Green

Storybook fell into my chubby hands in the

sixties. I taught myself to read from that book,

Enid Blyton's distinctive script

running across the darker green cloth cover.

I would look for her again and again,

the Secret Garden door,

that first Royal Flush, the miracle

of the black marks straightening themselves

out into sense across the page,

saying this way, this way

you'll escape.