The Library Poem by Gert Strydom

In primary school
books were restricted
and classed for adults and children
as if one would find
a deep secret in them,
as if something was hidden
in the depths of pages
that some people knew about
but did not want to share

and I had been reading
from being very small
and at the age of ten
had gone through every book
in the library
at the private school
and demanded from my mother
to become a member
of the public library in town

and found another world there,
a world that the keeper of the books,
the librarian Mrs Smith knew
and was permitted to read
novels, poetry and what ever I wanted to
even books about the construction of bombs
and explosives,
even books written in English
which was my second language
and authors like Jack Higgins, Wilbur Smith,
Geoffrey Jenkins and Desmond Bagley
were really great to me.