On throwing away an old copy of LOTR - blank verse

One volume, binding all in paperback,

with spine of crisp and yellowed cellotape, 

Its corners bent and nibbled down by age

Dog eared as a faithful hound past fights

Redundant on those overloaded shelves,

Replaced by illustrated, brighter tome

Too old, to tattered e'en to give away, 

I turn it over in my hand and see, 

One pound and pennies for five hundred sheaves, 

A price that tells a story of its own,

Of dreams and half a life- time spent

In lands whose air I’ll never breathe.

Then Aragorn strides out one final time,

Lost chapters shift and flutter to the floor, 

Bound for darkness; a fellowship’s doom, 

Or beyond Grey Havens never to return.