ALL MANNER OF WORLDS

I learnt to read when I was 9…
In the benighted village in which
I grew up in the 1950’s
They considered me precocious.

I skipped the usual fairy tales
Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail
And graduated straight to stories
Like The Famous 5 and The Secret 7…

Adventure series by Enid Blyton.
Then I became absorbed in the
Just William books by Richmal Cromton
About an 11 year old English schoolboy…

Before finding Arthur Ransome who 
Wrote the Swallows and Amazons Series
Beginning in the 1930’s and featuring
Unruly boys and girls in sailing dinghies.

The early teenage years were devoted
To Dennis Wheatley and the occult
Before discovering Ian Fleming’s 
Panoply of James Bond novels. 

Now, I read Thomas Merton
A Christian monk who died in Bangkok
Under suspicious circumstances**
But more importantly, was a great writer…

And part of a diverse monasticism
Predicated on the notion that
In solitude one may consider a life 
Of spirit divorced from the secular. 

As he writes in a Note prefacing his
Translation of poems by Chuang Tzu
He equates the ‘climate and peace
Of his own kind of solitude’…

With his retreat from the mundane
And the imaginative immersion
Into all manner of worlds.
This is what I seek as I read.

* Characters by Beatrix Potter
** See U/W December 17, 2025